The Second Intervention of Enzo Tapori
by WWSmith
Summary: An outside force brings the Master and the Doctor back together. Forced to interact, they begin to put their relationship back together. Unfortunately, nothing in the Doctor's life can last.  10/Master & Koschei/Theta. Spoilers through "End of Time".
1. The Meeting

AN: This story begins immediately proceeding "Utopia" (the first episode of the season three finale) and continues through "The End of Time". It mainly draws on events in seasons two, three and "The End of Time". There are also references from some of the better known events of the classic series as well as the first season of Torchwood, though you do not need to be familiar with either to follow the story. If you're worried about spoilers, turn back now!

I also must give a warning about content. This story is rated as it is for a reason. Some of the later chapters include mature content of various natures (not just dancing), so be advised that: 'this story was intended for people who shop in the grown-up section of the bookstore… if you have to ask whether you will be offended, you probably will.'

The Second Intervention of Enzo Tapori

Chapter One: The Meeting

_London, England, Sol 3 (Earth)_

"Nothing like good ol' British fish and chips." The Doctor said as he and Martha walked down the streets of London. He pulled out a chip a munched on it. "There's just something about them and here that you can't find anywhere else."

"Well, you would know, wouldn't you?" Martha said. They had decided to take a break from their usual adventures of death, doom and destruction after yet another close call. When he had asked where she wanted to go, she had replied: "Home. Not to stay, just to visit." He had put them down on a brisk March day on the side of town opposite of her flat.

"No sense in getting tangled up in yourself. I once knew a bloke who got so mixed up he couldn't do anything but travel around in a giant circle for the rest of his life. He was so terrified of creating a paradox he wouldn't let anyone help. " He'd said. Martha suspected he just didn't want to deal with the drama that always seemed to follow when her family was about, but she hadn't argued. It was nice to get away without having to run from something.

They wandered into a park and sat down together on a bench. The break in the weather had brought many people out that day, particularly couples. As Martha watched them go by, she couldn't help but wish that she too were on a date… with the man next to her. She sighed into her chips. No point in going down that road again; it only made her angry and upset. The Doctor already loved someone and Martha didn't even have a face to put with her jealousy. She mulled this over until the Doctor broke into her thoughts.

"Martha? You alright?" He asked. Martha looked up and over at him.

"Yeah, yeah I'm good." She smiled. "Just thinking about things. I didn't think we would make it out that last time." Yes, that was it. Let him think she was worried about dying. "Makes you glad to be here."

"Sure does. Out in the sun on a nice spring day. We should do this more often." The Doctor stretched out his hands and put them behind his head. Closing his eyes like a cat, he tilted his face towards the sunshine. Martha glared at him. '_Sometimes I really hate you, you oblivious bastard,_' she thought at him with all the venom her inner voice could summon. Martha stood up.

"I'm going to walk around a bit."

"Have fun." The Doctor replied. It would be years of his life before he saw her again.

* * *

_Citadel of the Time Lords, Gallifrey_

The Master sat in his room, listening to the sounds in his head. He had been working long to bring about this day, and now they would pay for bringing him back, those filthy, self-righteous Time Lords who thought they knew and saw everything. How wrong they were. How they would rue their mistake. How they would point fingers and shout when they saw that they knew nothing of the mind of their greatest weapon. He drummed his fingers on the table of his bare room and whispered, "Now it will end." On and on with the rhythm in his mind, he spoke the words to no one. His plan was perfect. By the time they'd realize what had happened, he would be far away both in time and space. He would run and run and run and run until they could never find him, never bring him back, and never, ever use him again. "Now it will end, now it will end, now it will end…"

The door of his room opened and he smiled with wild lunacy. This was going to be fun.

* * *

_London, England, Earth_

Hunter Trixam was exceptionally good at her job. Enzo had asked her to do this particular task as a favor to the both of them: not just anyone could snatch a Time Lord out of thin air, and she often complained of a lack of challenge. When Enzo had explained the circumstances, Trixam was all too happy to agree. She walked down the streets of London, natural and artificial disguises and aids turned to their highest settings. She would need to grab the first specimen quickly – it was the one notorious for running away. She reached the bench and walked by as if her quarry was just another person on the street. Trixam couldn't help but feeling a little disappointed. His senses, reflex and resilience were higher than the locals, but they were deaf, blind and dumb compared to her. Trixam sighed mentally – it was going to be a snatch and run. How disappointing.

Out of his sight, she looped around through the greenway to approach him from behind. With an unearthly quiet, she walked up to the Doctor, placed her hands onto his head and whispered.

_Sleep._ He struggled against her at first, but she overpowered him too quickly for any real mustering of defense. '_Poor little thing,_' she thought as picked up his limp form and carried him away. '_No one to practice against in this backwater._'

* * *

_Citadel of the Time Lords, Gallifrey _

The Master ran down a red hallway as fast as his legs could take him, the chaos and destruction he was so famous for now raging behind him. He laughed aloud as he flew down the corridor, his body stretching in wide strides that belonged to the freedom of childhood. He felt like a little boy again, tearing away from a prank lest he be caught at the scene. Soon he would be free of this place, of the horrors, of the memories, of everything. Those fools would never know until it was much, much too late to do anything about it. The old sacks of talk might not feel it, but he knew, deep down in his bones, that the walls of time itself were closing in around this place. Soon, the only escape from it would be the long way around.

The Master rounded a corner and took two lefts, a middle fork, and a particularly sharp right before shoving both hands into the door of a stairwell. He hopped onto the banister and slid down, hearts far out of sync with the drums. Finally at his destination, The Master jumped down, turned the doorknob and made a mad dash down the final hallway to the emergency evacuation port he had seen on a stolen map of the building. The emergency TARDIS was simplified, but it would get him away from this place. He flung the controls wildly: "Far away, far a-when!" He said gleefully.

When he reached his destination, the Master's time-space senses told him he had gone far indeed. As bad as it was, the space disorientation was negligible compared to the reeling dizziness he felt from his sense of "when". _How far did I go?_ He thought as vertigo forced him to all fours. Well, it didn't matter. If it was so far to make moments seem to stretch and bend, it was certainly far enough to get away from those damn stinking Time Lords. He reached into his pocket for the item that would make his disguise utterly perfect. Holding the fob watch in his hand, he stood drunkenly and yelled "Goodbye, cruel world!" As he moved to engage the mechanism, he heard a voice behind him.

_ Please step away from the device._

Before he had a chance to get a look at the voice, the world went black and the Master knew no more.

* * *

_Island Epsilon 10 ("Homebase"), MAXA Breeder Planet Omega Ki ("Castaway")_

If The Master had been disoriented before, he might as well be drunk now. His perception of time and space was completely overcome, and even though he was pretty sure he was no longer moving in either dimension, it still felt as if he was stopping and starting at an erratic rate. He remained still and waited for his brain to catch up with his body. After a few minutes, he sat up and looked around. He was in a plain room that had a sort of clinical feel to it. He smelled the air and caught a familiar scent, but with his head still spinning he couldn't place it. He put his hand to his face and was rather shocked to find that the beard he wore was no longer there. Checking himself over, the Master discovered something that would have been obvious under any other circumstances: he had regenerated. '_Not only that_,' he thought,'_but I'm a bloody woman now_.' She laughed.

"After all this time, I finally end up as a girl!" It was not unheard of for a Time Lord to change genders, but it wasn't a common occurrence. Normally, a child born male would regenerate as a man for his whole life and vice versa. Giving herself a more careful inspection, she found that she still had a head and legs and all the other parts in the right places. The Master tried to recall how this had happened, but the last thing she remembered was preparing to use the Chameleon Arch to hide from the Time Lords. No, there was something after: A voice to step away from the device. What the hell was that meant to mean?

Well, whatever it was, she could figure it out later; regeneration had left her starving. She slowly got up and began to search for food. This room was small; meant to be a bedroom, she guessed, as the bed she was laying on took up most of the room. There was a small table on the opposite wall, and a door beyond that. The whole place seemed far too planned to her – it screamed "jail", even if it was clean and orderly. She went over to the door, found it unlocked, and went through.

Beyond the door was a large, open room. It looked to be in good order just as the first room had, but it still maintained the prison-like feeling – lots of space, but no windows. The Master went over the room and confirmed her earlier suspicion: The place was set up and stocked rather like an apartment, but totally devoid of any windows or tools that would aid escape. She found two doors that she couldn't open – one the same size and relative position of the one she had entered the main room by, and a large door that wouldn't budge. The Master assumed the big one was "out". The other door was a bit of a curiosity. It was another room presumably like the first, but why was it there? And why lock it? What was the purpose of a locked door in a secure cell? She hadn't found any obvious cameras or monitors, but that certainly didn't mean they weren't there. Perhaps her jailers were behind the door. She was about to go over it in detail when her stomach reminded her of the reason she had come into the room in the first place.

Going back to the kitchen area, The Master began to pull items that would have made most beings sick in combination. Sardines, apples, a raw egg, a can of suspicious-looking tomato sauce, pepperoni, chocolate syrup and a tub of cottage cheese all went into a large bowl. She stirred the ingredients together and settled down to eat, all the while keeping an eye on the locked door.

* * *

The Doctor rolled over and sat up. Dazed, he scrubbed his face and tried to figure out what had happened. Whatever it was, he felt like he'd been hit by a truck. His space-time senses were giving a null signal – either he had been moved a great distance in a short time or he'd never been here before. '_Both, most likely_,' he thought. He checked himself over and found nothing damaged, but he was no longer in his own clothes. '_No trainers, no suit pockets, no screwdriver… and no coat_.' This saddened him a bit. He'd gotten rather attached to that coat since he started wearing it. '_No way to contact Martha, either._' He wondered if she knew he was gone yet. At least she was in her own time and near home, which was more than could be said for some of his other companions. No use in worrying about that now. He tried the door and was surprised to find it open. He was even more surprised to find a woman sitting in the next room wearing clothes in the same style as his. By the time his scrambled senses realized that the woman was his once friend and most of the time enemy, surprise was no longer adequate and he was forced to resort to astonishment.

The Master waved. "Hello, Doctor." She said through a mouth full of regeneration salad.

"What!"

"Odd, running into you here."

"WHAT!"

The Master put her fork down and swallowed. "Your face looks funny when you do that."

"What?"

"Are you broken or something?"

"Wha- no. No." The Doctor shook his head. "What's going on here?"

The Master took up her fork again. "No idea."

"How did you get here?"

"Don't know. Woke up here." She pointed to the big door with her fork. "That's the only locked door. This whole place is set up to keep us alive, but in. Haven't found a way to get out yet." She resumed eating. The Doctor looked unconvinced. This was out of character with the Master's usual plans, but not so far that he was willing to discount the possibility. Still, the Master wasn't one to revel himself until the very last moment. "This isn't one of mine." The Master said, breaking into his thoughts.

"You don't seem too eager to escape." The Doctor pointed out. The Master shrugged.

"It's safe here." She said and continued eating. This caught the Doctor's curiosity. He sat down in the chair opposite her.

"Where were you before this?" He asked. The Master's indifference slipped.

"Home." She said shortly.

"When?" The Master looked at his old friend. The eyes were different, but the held the same look that always seemed to appear when he ("she", the Doctor corrected himself) was honest in the desperate hope of being understood.

"The Time War. They thought I'd be the perfect warrior. Too bad for them I wasn't going to play good little solider." The sarcasm was biting and self-deprecating, meant to make people want to avoid the subject. It was a tactic the Doctor knew well.

"I'm sorry." The Master turned cold and angry.

"You always are." The Doctor wasn't sure what to say to that. "Are you going to try to save me again?"

"If you let me."

"You can't stand to lose, can you, Doctor? Have to fix everyone."

"I can't help it." The Doctor said. _'One failure can spark a million actions.'_

"Learn to help it." The Master got up, grabbed the bowl and went to her room.

'_Never._' The Doctor thought after her. '_Not as long as there's one person left who needs me… even if they've hurt me, even if they don't want my help, even if they want to kill me._' He got up and went to his own room. '_Even if it's you._'


	2. The Breakout

Chapter Two: The Breakout

"_Homebase", MAXA Breeder Planet "Castaway"_

They didn't speak to each other much in those first few days. The Doctor, always one to have way too much energy, channeled it into trying to crack the big door. The Master set up shop on the other side on the common room with a chemistry project that looked like Rube Goldberg's first attempt at cooking. They worked on their own projects and for a while they lost themselves in the concentrated silence that was characteristic of all trains of thought working towards the same end. Late afternoon of the third day, the Doctor broke the silence.

"Who designed this door, the brainless son of a Maximegalonic sea monkey?" His old habit of insulting species when frustrated gave him a little release, but not much. There were few things that could truly get under the Doctor's skin, and being contained was one of them. Ever since he was small, he had hated not being able to move about freely. He could do all right when it was his choice to be somewhere and there were plenty of distractions, but he still stayed near the door. Something in him craved the freedom and control to go wherever he wished whenever he wanted. Locked up with no distractions or reasons was gnawing on his sanity. '_Stupid old man,_' he thought at himself, '_got set in your ways and now not getting what you want's driving you crazy._' He sighed and got up. '_Alright,_' he told himself. '_You can't find a way out just now. It's fine. You'll figure something out. Banging your head against the wall's only going to give you a headache._' He decided to go see what the Master was up to.

Over on the other side of the common room, the Master's strange concoctions sat in all manner of containers. She moved about them like a mad scientist trying to perfect a lifelong project that would allow her to finally rule the world. At first the Doctor said nothing. Their conversation on the first day hadn't been hostile as such, but it certainly wasn't friendly. The Master seemed willing to tolerate him as long as he didn't bother her. He wondered what sort of personality she had now. He had experience with female Time Lords of course, but they varied as much as females of any other species. What regeneration was the Master on anyway?

"Pass me the blue stuff in the red bowl."

"Sorry?" The Master looked annoyed, then pointed to a container to the Doctor's right with a slime-covered finger.

"Pass me that, will you?" He handed it to her.

"What are you making?"

"Acid, hopefully." She added the blue substance to a stockpot and tossed the bowl over her shoulder. "I figure we can burn our way out."

"Any idea who's keeping us here?" Said the Doctor. Hopefully this tack wouldn't cause problems.

"No." She stirred the contents of the pot.

"Well, we know who it isn't." The Doctor leaned against the table and stared at the ceiling. "I've got a whole list of people who want me dead, and there's just as many for you. Then there are the ones who want the Time Lords gone…"

"Which only leaves several billion."

"Yeah." He sighed. "If we knew who was doing this, maybe we could figure out why they're doing it." The Master scoffed.

"Use your head, Doctor. It's obvious what they want." The Doctor looked puzzled. "They're trying to drive us mad."

"What?"

"Think about it: You can't stand to be in one place, and I can't stand to be around you." She grabbed a jar, dumped its contents into the pot, and threw the jar away. It joined the red bowl as a shower of broken glass. "They don't want to kill us. They can't; we'd just regenerate." She faced him, arms spread to illustrate the point. "They've already tried."

"I don't think that's it."

She shrugged and went back to her alchemy. The Doctor had a different suspicion for the motives of their captors, but he had a piece of information the Master wouldn't think to suspect. For a few seconds, he considered telling the Master what had become of their home world. He quickly thought better of it.

"How did you escape?"

"You mean from last time? Come now, Doctor." The Master looked over at him. "I never give away my secrets." The stockpot suddenly began to steam and fizz. The Master pulled out what remained of the spoon and grinned. "We're in business."

* * *

The Doctor stood next to the Master and stared out across the ocean. Despite the different colors, he couldn't help but remember the last time he had done this. It had been almost a millennium ago, back on Gallifrey. Back when they were friends. He pictured their childhood selves swimming out into the salty spray, laughing and splashing without a care in the universe. '_And really,_'he thought to himself, '_what did we have to worry about then?_' It had been the spring before their eighth birthdays. They were both set to begin the Academy in the summer, and their parents had wanted to have one last vacation before the two boys passed over the great threshold that could potentially destroy their lives. The Doctor sighed.

"Do you remember the spring we went to Yamane Beach?"

The Master looked at him with an annoyed expression. "Getting sentimental on me?"

The Doctor laughed. '_I've got no one else to be sentimental with. And I've got to keep you from doing something rash._' "No. Just thinking about the last time we did this." The Master rolled her eyes.

"That was a long time ago. Right now is what matters." It was a fair statement. They had managed to burn their way out of the cell with the Master's concoction, only to find that the rest of the building was in much worse shape. The farther they'd gone from the first room, the clearer it had become that they were in some kind of abandoned complex. When they had reached the last standing walls of the building, all they had found was an empty island. They'd spent the day exploring, but in the end found no new answers. The Master had suggested that they should go someplace where they could get a good look at the stars in the hopes of seeing something familiar.

The sun set, and the sky turned from blue to a red-purple before settling on dark orange. It remained that burnt orange color for what seemed like a lifetime to the Doctor. His mind leapt back unbidden to his home world, his hearts suddenly heavy as he remembered the orange sky and silver trees and the fields of deep red grass. He missed it so much. All those years, Gallifrey had been nothing but a few switches away and he'd run from it: every excuse to stay away, every reason to be somewhere, anywhere but home. Now that he wanted nothing more than to look upon that place, it was gone and he could never go back. Home was a blue box that was too big on the inside; family consisted of the random people he ran into before they drifted out of his life again. And somehow the universe had conspired to take even that from him. The irony of the situation was bitterly fitting. '_Here I am, with the one person who could understand and I can't talk to her because I wasn't clever enough to find a way to hold her mind together._'

"It's like home." The Master said, breaking into his thoughts.

"What?"

"Gallifrey. The sky, it looks like home."

"Probably some atmospheric side effect of particles in the air combined with the specific wavelengths of the sun." The Doctor replied using overly technical words to hide what he felt. This would have worked on the humans he was used to dealing with, but the Master noticed that the Doctor was avoiding the subject. At first she decided to let it drop and thereby avoid having to deal with an emotional Doctor. On the other hand, it was opportunity to strike at her old rival.

"I haven't been there in ages."

"Well… I've been wandering around and busy and all that. Not much time for visits."

"The Time War's messed with things, but it's still home. What is it those apes of yours say? No place like home?"

"They have a lot of funny sayings. There's no place exactly like any other place, if you really think about it."

The light faded and the stars came out. Like the island, they gave up no clues. The Master thought she saw a few familiar lights and the Doctor had a suspicion that one of the groups belonged to an old constellation of Androzani Major, but neither of them could say for certain. The Master sat down on a rock and drummed her fingers on the stone.

"Well, didn't expect to see the Medusa Cascade or anything."

"No, that would be too easy. No clusters, no specific objects or phenomena." The Doctor was still scanning the sky in hopes of seeing an identifiable star. "But it does tell us something. If neither of us recognize it, then we're someplace neither of us have been… and that narrows it down a lot." He turned back to where the Master was sitting. "What are you doing?" The Master looked at the Doctor as if he had just grown a third arm.

"Nothing. I'm not doing anything." She continued to drum in perfect four beat pattern.

"That tapping. What is that?" The Master's face turned slightly manic.

"Don't you hear it?" She asked with all the innocence in the world.

The Doctor froze. '_Please,_' he pleaded desperately to whatever deity would listen, '_please don't let it be that again._' "Hear what?"

"The drums." Her grin transformed into an expression that would have made the Cheshire cat look sane. "Don't you hear them?" The Doctor shook his head, wide-eyed.

"No. I don't hear anything."

"I always hear them. Always. In my head. One two three four." She started to sway side to side with the rhythm. "One two three four."

"Stop it." The Doctor said flatly.

"One two three four…"

"Stop." The Doctor repeated, his control beginning to slip.

"One two thre— " The Master stopped in mid count as the Doctor grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved his face close to hers.

"Stop it, alright!" He looked at her with a combination of frustration and anger. She stared back, shocked at first, then with anger of her own. "Please," he said, letting the force out his voice and grip. He still held her, but not in the desperate manner of before. "Please don't do that."

"And why shouldn't I?" She got up and pushed him away. "Why the hell should I listen to anything you say!" He let himself fall back from her and gave no reply. The Master glared at him with hate in her soul. If looks could kill, he would have regenerated on the spot. He backed away, but she was just getting started. It was different, being a female. As a man, she would have let this go or thrown back some snarky reply, but in this body thing were not the same. She was mad, and everything in her told her she had a right to be. He had no control over her. She was the Master, damn it, and by gods she was going to make him pay for grabbing her like that. "Well! Are you going to say something or just stand there like an idiot?"

"I'm sorry." His quiet, passive defense only stoked her fury. She reeled on him with claws in her voice.

"You're always fucking sorry! You're always running around trying to be the damn hero and save everyone, but guess what, 'Doctor', you can't save me!" She told him, furious, waiting for a response. He only looked at her with an expression of hurt and desperate need for forgiveness that almost broke the storm in her. Behind the fury, a deeper part of the Master that still cared about her friend regretted saying those words with all its being. She watched as he took a breath and buried his hurt back down into the dark places he hid from the world.

"I could help you, if you let me." He said almost evenly.

The Master turned away from him. '_Don't play his game,_' she thought fiercely. She wanted to stay angry. It was easier, simpler just to hate him as an enemy. "I don't want your help." She spat over her shoulder.

They stood in silence for a time. Finally, she heard him turn and walk away back to the building. The Master waited until she could no longer hear footsteps then began to pace the beach in short angry strides. '_Where does that bastard get off? What was he thinking, just grabbing me like that?_' Her thoughts continued on this track for a long time. Eventually, the analytical part of her mind began to pick apart the encounter. Why had he done that? And why had the drumming made him grab her like that? The Doctors she remembered never yelled until they got to a breaking point. Damn Time Lords. For all their accomplishments, they never did figure out the whole "healthy expression of emotions" thing. She went back to the building.

Halfway back, the meaning of the Doctor's actions snapped in to place. She stood there in the undergrowth of the forest and stared out into the night, amazed at the implications of the conclusion. "Doctor," she said out loud to darkness, "you are truly pathetic."


	3. The Storm

"Warning: this story was intended for people who shop in the grown-up section of the bookstore… if you have to ask whether you will be offended, you probably will." – Abbie Hilton

Chapter Three: The Storm

Morning found the Doctor sitting at the kitchen table nursing a cup of tea. He had slept fitfully, but suspected that his tiredness had nothing to do with lack of rest. He sighed. '_Maybe things were better this way. At least if I'm stuck here I can't do any more damage._' Maybe this was some kind of divine judgment. He imagined a goddess with long flowing robes addressing him from on high in a booming voice: "You who call yourself 'Doctor', I give you this trial: redeem your greatest failure, or live forever with the broken result!"

"But Goddess," imaginary Doctor said, "how can I do such I thing? All my efforts have ended with him running away or refusing my help. I am only a Time Lord, not one so powerful as you."

"SILENCE!" The Goddess bellowed. "I will provide you with the circumstances. He will not be able to run away, but in return, neither will you. You will save him and yourself or you will suffer with your failure!"

"But Goddess," imaginary Doctor pleaded, "I've tried to do good for the universe. Why do you punish me like this?" The goddess turned kind then as she spoke.

"This trial is not punishment. It is opportunity. The last time circumstance allowed you to aid your friend, but you were too young to do so. Now I am giving you a way to absolve your oldest guilt. Do this, Doctor, and your soul will be healed." The goddess faded away and the Doctor's attention returned to reality. It was a pleasant way of looking at things, but the Doctor had seen too much to put stock in the supernatural. He sipped at his tea thoughtfully. It would be a nice change of pace for the universe to help him for once, though.

The Master came in. She said nothing as she crossed the room and made herself breakfast. She took her time with food, letting him dangle in the silence. He hated this. Any kind of fighting was bad, but he almost preferred open hostility to the uncertainty.

"So, what do you think we should do now?" He asked. She sat down across from him with a bowl of cereal.

"Who said anything about 'we'?" She said it like a fact, but the implications spoke louder than the words. The Doctor buried his face in his hands. '_I don't need this. We're stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing but each other and now you're acting like a teenager._' He took a deep breath before replying.

"The only way we're going to get out of here is if we work together." He tried to make it sound reasonable.

"Oh? And what's your brilliant plan for escape?"

"I don't have one. That's why I need you. You always were better at breaking out of places than me."

The Master laughed. "I'll give you that." She took a few more bites before continuing. "We should build something to call for help." The Doctor nodded.

* * *

It was a relief to have something to do. Some of the life support functions of the building were still working, most importantly the self-stocking cabinets that provided them with food. Parts were sparse, but between the two of them they were able to throw together something like an old-style radio beacon over the next few weeks. The bulky and cumbersome thing was willed together with odds and ends from the kitchen and bathroom, but it worked. Or at least they hoped it would. Whether anyone flew past to hear it was an entirely different question. They propped it up on the roof of the building and waited. It had only been broadcasting for a day when a storm blew in from the east.

"We should get it out of the rain. It'll short out and or lose pieces in the wind. I don't want to have to build it again," the Doctor admitted. The Master agreed and they climbed up onto the roof to undo all the securing from the day before. With the better vantage point, it was clear that the weather was only growing harsher. The sea was a churning, angry thing that blended with the boiling sky to create a seething mass of wind and water.

"Careful," the Doctor warned as they moved the construction. They had taken it up in pieces for this very reason. There was stairway down from the roof, but it was broken in places and now slick with rain. The Doctor, being the taller one, was backing down the stairs while the Master held the other end.

"Just don't trip." The Master replied. "I don't think I can hold this up by myself."

"I'm not going to…" The Doctor trailed off. "Did you hear something?" The Master was about to say 'just the drums' when she caught what he was talking about.

"Yeah." It was hard to defect over the rain, but Time Lord senses were sharper than most. "It sounds like…" She broke off as they both came to the same conclusion. "MOVE!" She yelled. The Doctor tried to, but the transmitter was heavy and he was still trying not to slip on the wet stairs. He stumbled and fell, the weight of the device tipping towards his side. The staircase, now compromised and overburdened, cracked under the Doctor. He barely had time to feel the support crumble beneath him. Now he was in empty space, the radio falling with him, the Master a million miles away. He hit the ground and the world went dark.

The Doctor woke some time later to a face hovering above him. It was a familiar one, and so was the voice that went with it. He breathed in slowly, wincing at the pain in his ribs, and let his nose identify the face.

"You don't want to be doing that." The voice said.

"Master?"

"No, it's Rassilon. Don't try to get up, the radio landed on you and I think it's broken something." She pressed on his chest lightly. "Does this hurt?"

"Yes!" The Doctor gasped. The Master shook her head.

"Well, the good news is that the radio's okay. You make a pretty good cushion, Doctor. The bad news is that I can't move it or you on my own."

"I don't weigh that much…" the Doctor said.

The Master rolled her eyes. "And how do you propose I move two meters of you with this?" She stood up to illustrate the point. "You might be a string bean, but you're still too big for me to pick up." She had a point.

"Maybe you could build something?"

"Won't help. The only way out of here is to climb through a hole. You'll have to do it on your own." The Doctor looked around. They were somewhere under the building, perhaps in what used to be the basement. He could see the hole he had fallen through to his right.

"Not that one I hope…"

"No." The Master pointed in the opposite direction. "It's back that way. It's easy enough to get through from the outside, but on this end you need a rope."

"I don't want to spend all night down here…" The Doctor tried to sit up, but his body insisted rather fiercely that this was a bad idea.

The Master smirked. "Stay. I'm going to get supplies from upstairs. Try not to die while I'm gone." She turned and left.

Alone with nothing else to do, the Doctor took stock of himself. Besides his ribs, they rest of him seemed to be okay if sore. He stared at the concrete ceiling. From this vantage point, it didn't seem so far to fall, but he supposed that the weight of the radio combined with the impact of his own body would have been enough to injure him to this extent. This body was such a lightweight. Still, it had its advantages – it was tall and strong for its size, and if most of the females he had come in contact with were any indication, it was quite attractive. His thoughts drifted back to Martha. He was going to have to do something about her sooner or later. Playing dumb wouldn't work forever. The problem was that he didn't want to hurt her or drive her away. He liked traveling with her, and she had proved herself time and again to be not only a good friend, but a literal lifesaver. The problem was he didn't love her the way she wanted him to. It wasn't like with Rose.

Rose. The Doctor wondered how she was doing now. He had left her safe and alive, just like he promised. Their time together had been wonderful, and her absence crept up on him from time to time. But for all of their closeness, he was never able to form the sort of bond with her he truly craved. Simple biology had thrown up an impossible barrier. He was a Time Lord and she wasn't. He had grown up communicating feelings through touch telepathy and she did not have the means to hear his unspoken words. He had tried, he had tried so hard to say what he felt, to show her what he literally had no words to express and failed. On Gallifrey, emotions ran uncorrupted and pure between lovers. It could be overwhelming and terrifying to open to another so completely, but when the trust was true and the connection ran both ways it was like nothing else in all the worlds. And it was this that the Doctor was unable to share with Rose Tyler. It had been why he fell head over heels for Reniette. He had been frustrated from not being able to be with the woman he loved, and then she came along and entered his head like it was nothing. She had been a latent telepath, he was sure of it. Having someone hear him and being able to speak back… he should have known better, but he had been starved of that contact for so long that it had drowned out his judgment. Another unintended side effect of being the last of his kind.

"Doctor?" The Master called. "Still alive in there?" '_Well, not the last after all._'

"Still alive." He yelled back as best he could. The Doctor heard her drop several packages on the floor of the basement before dropping down herself. She gathered up the parcels and brought them over.

"What happened to you?" He asked. The Master was soaked and the packages were similarly dripping.

"Forgot my umbrella." He remembered the storm that had started this adventure and felt like an idiot.

"Sorry." She glared at him but said nothing. The Master started a fire and spread a few blankets around. Expect for the concrete, it looked rather like a camping trip. When she had gotten everything set, she turned to the Doctor with what used to be a bed sheet.

"Can you lift your arms?" She asked. He did so, slowly to avoid pulling on the muscles around his bruised ribs too much. She knelt down beside him and began to pull his shirt over his head.

"What are you doing?" The Doctor asked, confused and slightly embarrassed. She looked at him like he was a stupid child.

"Taking you shirt off. I've got to bind up your ribs so they heal properly."

"Oh." The Master shook her head and continued with what she was doing. '_Of course that's why she's doing it. Why else?_' Several odd thoughts drifted through the Doctor's head then. Here was another Time Lord, right next to him. Here was what he hadn't managed to find in all the worlds he'd been to. And, strangest of all, here was the one friend who knew him better than anyone else. If there was anyone who could be trusted, surely his oldest friend could be.

The Doctor tried to focus on what was in front of him, but the closeness of the Master wasn't doing him any good. Memories flicked through in quick succession. He tried to think of something else, anything else, but his brain had other ideas. The Master's hands brushed near his head as she pulled the shirt free. He flashed back to the Academy: the two of them sitting on his bed after the lesson, the Master's hands on either side of his head, his own sweating palms gripping his friend's arms for dear life as they discovered something neither of them were ready for, the horrified looked on the Master's young face when he screamed, misunderstanding the pleasure for pain…

"Doctor…?" The Master was watching his face curiously. The Doctor realized he was breathing far faster than was strictly necessary. Further reflection found that despite being half-naked and wet from the rain, he was very warm.

"Sorry, zoned out for a moment." The Master looked unconvinced.

"I need you to sit up so I can do this." She pulled over a box. "I'm going to help you up, then you can lean against it." With the Master's help, he managed to sit up and lean at an angle against the crate so she could bind his ribs with the sheet. The Doctor found he was able to think now that she had moved away and he had the pain of his injury to distract him. She was still very close, but at least now her hands were nowhere near his head.

While the change in position may have helped the Doctor, the Master was finding this new arrangement considerably worse. She hadn't thought anything of taking the Doctor's shirt off. She had to do it in order to bandage him up. It was that simple. But the Master had never been a woman before and had little experience with being attracted to males from this point of view. She had been with her share of men, sure, but she didn't realize just how distracting being in close contact with a pretty, shirtless man could be when what seemed like a truck load of hormones was running through her blood. The Master carefully wound the bandages around the Doctor's chest, paying very close attention to the details of the winding and trying to banish thoughts of how his skin felt under her hands. '_This is ridiculous,_' she thought to herself. '_It's the _Doctor_ for Omega's sake. I've got to get this body into line._' The Master finished her task with perfect outward detachment and helped the Doctor, now braced by the binding, walk over to a blanket and lay down.

"Thank you." He said when he'd gotten settled. "It still hurts, but it's better now."

"You're welcome." She replied without thinking. The Doctor laughed feebly.

"That's the first nice thing you've said to me since this started."

"Should I go back to being nasty then?"

"No," he said, refusing to take the bait. "I like you better this way." He gave her a genuine smile. The Master wasn't sure how to respond that; it had been years since someone had looked at her that way. "I always hoped… that we could be friends again." Now the Master was truly lost. She wasn't even sure what she was feeling. Happiness? Belonging? Gratitude? Whatever it was, she felt like crying. Not trusting herself to speak, the Master turned away from him and focused on making dinner.

* * *

The days passed slowly as the two Time Lords waited for someone to answer their SOS. They wouldn't know if anyone had heard them until a ship landed on the doorstep, a fact that made waiting all the more tedious. Eventually, they got tired of the food in the first room, and began scavenging the island for edibles. Fortunately for them, no Time Lord was allowed to learn how to operate a TARDIS until they had been thoroughly schooled in survival skills. A TARDIS could take you to a multitude of places and times, but it could also strand you just as readily if something went wrong.

"At least you're not totally useless anymore." The Master said as they brought back the latest load of somewhat questionable fruits and vegetables.

"I wasn't laid up all that long," said the Doctor a little defensively. "We'll throw you down a two story hole with the radio next time and see how long it takes you to heal." The Master chucked a fruit at him.

"No plots until we're out of this solar system."

"Sure we can't make that 'no plots ever'?"

The Master shot him a smile. "But what would you be without me to keep you on your toes?"

They put away the rest of the food in companionable silence. The Doctor cast about for an excuse not to bring up the subject he was about to mention, but soon gave up. He had put this off for far too long. They could be rescued any day; if he wasted this opportunity, he'd never forgive himself. '_Not that I have a good record of that already._'

"Master," he began tentatively. "I…" He suddenly stopped. He had been a complete fool. Asking to help the Master again wasn't going to work. It had never worked before: why should it work now? '_By the Suns… it's been staring me in the face and I haven't seen it._' The Master was looking at him curiously. "Um…" '_Think, you idiotic excuse for a Time Lord!_' "Listen, about what happened that day." The Doctor tried to think of a good way to phrase what he was about to say. He decided to go with 'straight forward'. "That day I fell through the stairs... I've been thinking about it." The Master raised an eyebrow.

"And…?"

"Well," the Doctor said, the pace of his speech picking up, "I just thought that you fixed me up and everything and it would have been so easy for you to just leave me and so I was thinking maybe I could do something for you in return."

The Master didn't react to this right away. In her mind, the last words he said were 'easy for you to just leave me'. Everything after that had been cut off by her own internal objection. "Do you really think I would have just left you?" She asked, seemingly incredulous.

The Doctor quickly realized his mistake and began to back paddle. "No, no! It's just I thought I could, you know, try to return the favor…?" He trailed off. '_This isn't working._' He looked at the Master with a helpless expression. "You propped me up when no one else would. You were my friend when no one else would acknowledge I was even alive. You…" The Doctor gestured madly towards the Master. "You were brilliant and clever and liked and everything I never was. You could have chosen anyone, but you decided to pull me up. Me…" He shook his head. "The outcast with one parent. If the things we went through as kids means anything to you at all, let me try to help you. If it doesn't work, we can stop and I'll never mention it again." The Doctor looked the Master straight in the eye. "But I have to know I tried. I've done so many things I can't do anything about. Let me try to mend the one thing I can."

They stared at each for a long time. The Master wanted to be angry and insulted, but she had never quite realized exactly why the Doctor always wanted to 'help'. She didn't want to be changed. The Master had resisted being put into a mold her whole life, which had in turn shaped her all the same. Somewhere, she had always assumed making her more normal was what he meant. If what the Doctor had just said was true, it changed everything. All her assumptions, all her explanations, they were wrong. She tried to untangle it while drums pounded away in the back of her mind. Her whole life she had tried to make them stop, tried to find out why she heard them, why no one else shared this strange affliction. And now some one else was trying to silence them and set her free.

"I could stop the drumming." The Doctor said. "I can help. We can pull this to rights."

'We'. It had been a long time since someone had said that to her and meant it... besides the Doctor, of course. She took in a deep breath, held it, and let it out again.

"Alright. I'll do it."

The Doctor's face lit up in a broad smile.

"Brilliant."


	4. The Memory

"Warning: this story was intended for people who shop in the grown-up section of the bookstore… if you have to ask whether you will be offended, you probably will." – Abbie Hilton

AN: This is a long chapter. I played with making it two sections, but it never quite worked out. In "The Armageddon Factor", the Scarf runs into an old classmate who addresses him as "Theta Sigma". I am assuming, as many other fans have, that this was the Doctor's childhood name, or at least a nickname he used at the Academy (Go, Class of '93!). According the wisdom of wiki, Master's nickname before he chose his was "Koshcei". Be advised, the heavier content begins here.

Chapter Four: The Memory

The Doctor stood at the edge of a vast mountain range, looking down on the corrupted city of the Master's mind. The land around him was complex and broken. He knew that it had been strange originally, but it was clear there were other forces at work. Foreign, sinister wills that had used their long years of occupancy to wreak havoc on this place. It had not been like this the last time he was here.

Many years ago, the mountains had been soft and fertile with great valleys filled with deep red grass. The terrain had welcomed him and quickly guided him to where he wanted to go then. Now the slopes were harsh and gray with only the sparest patches of grass struggling against the rot that seemed to invade from all angles. Clearly, this was now a place to keep others out.

When he had first spotted the city, his relief at finding it quickly turned to dread when he realized what had become of it. As wrapped as the surrounding lands had been, it was nothing compared to the corruption that gripped the city. The thing was a mess of broken buildings and re-purposed rumble throw together in a mockery of what it used to be. All over the city was a creeping black vine that pulsed to a four beat rhythm, breaking down what it touched a little more with each new encroachment. What should have been a gleaming center of thought and ideas was a shantytown of insanity and decay. It belonged in a hall of nightmares. Faced with what had become of his friend's mind, the Doctor got so angry he almost lost his concentration and broke the link. The Doctor spent the whole first day forcing himself to look at the nightmare city and not get angry. He had to maintain control or the link would break.

The next day, he had explored the walls of city. Unlike the shantytown inside, they were in excellent repair. High, imposing rings of metal covered in spikes encompassed the city on all sides. The Doctor had circled the city, looking for an entrance. He found one door that was chained up. A sign on it read "closed forever". A very, very long time ago, he had been the first to walk through that door. Now it seemed that no one was allowed in. This had been confirmed when a red dragon swooped down from the top of the wall.

"No one is permitted to enter here." It had said.

"I've come through here before. Why is it boarded up now? What happened here?" The dragon had regarded him with narrowed, mistrustful eyes.

"The way is shut. Disaster passed here. None are permitted to enter lest that pain seeks to visit again."

"What disaster? What was so terrible that you sealed it off forever?" The land shook slightly.

"We do not speak of it!" The dragon had said with a nervous glance over her shoulder. "The way is shut and sealed. Leave this place." The Doctor left to find another way in, but discovered none. All the other portals were choked with the black kudzu he had seen from the mountains. At this closer distance, he had been able see it was definitely a source of the Master's insanity. Every thought that came in from the surrounding landscape was either wrapped by the vines or repulsed entirely. He was sure this was the incarnation of the drums the Master heard. But how to get in and stop it?

It was a problem he was still trying to work out. Whatever had happened, the Master's inner mind was completely closed off. The Doctor experimented with the simple psychic spells he had learned to work on the mental plane. Nothing. The metal might as well have been made of real steel for all the good it had done. He tried to push through the walls, but they were a construction of solid pain. Once, he put his hands to the hot metal for a full minute to try and figure out a way to get through them. When he touched them he could perceive the writhing mass of negative emotions: hate, anger, aversion, fear, fury…It had exhausted him mentally, but it gave him an idea of what he was dealing with. This was not just meant just to out the drums. Outside of that, there were no clues. It seemed that in order to silence the drums, the Master would have to work out other things first. The Doctor stepped back from the city and let himself fade.

* * *

He opened his eyes back in the physical world. The Doctor was sitting on a chair next the couch in the main room, the Master's head in her hands. As he ended the probe, she sat up and looked at him.

"Well? I still hear them." It took the Doctor a moment to register that she was speaking to him. Projecting his consciousness into someone else's mind was not a hard thing for him, but staying out of touch with his body for so long often left him disconnected with reality. He rubbed his hands together, the feel of her hair pulling past his fingers still on them. He was extremely glad that this kind of projection required all his thought and didn't leave room for stray ideas to pop into his head. Unfortunately, that meant that the backlog was rushing in at once. '_Keep it together._' He told himself. '_The past is past. You don't have to give in because it's there. We're not kids any more._'

'_Oh, but think of what that really means._' A different, darker voice answered. '_Think of all the things you could do now. All that you've learned to do with another. It was good when you didn't know what you were doing – just imagine how it would be now._'

'_No._' He told the dark voice. '_I'm not taking advantage of this._'

'_But it would be so easy…_' The dark voice let him ponder that, then added, '_You know she wants to. She's just as lonely as you are. You saw the door._'

'_Shut up._'

"Doctor? Hello? Did you find anything new?" The Master was waving a hand in front of his face. The Doctor looked up from his hands and tried to listen to what she was saying.

"Sorry, I was… I get a little spacey after being in so long. What were you saying?"

"I still hear the drums." He considered what to tell her.

"Your head is locked down tight. Big walls of negative emotion on all sides. I can't find a way in."

"Walls?"

"Well, not real walls of course. But you're keeping everything out, and I mean _everything_. You'd need a powerful psychic to break in against your will."

"Then how are the drums in there?"

"From what I could tell, they been there a long time. Longer than the walls. The drumming goes back into the oldest parts of your mind." He leaned back in the chair. "But that makes sense since you've heard them all your life…" The Doctor shifted tone. "Master, whatever happened to you to make you put up those walls, you're going to have to trust me enough let me past them. I can't stop the drums otherwise." The Master was silent. "The only way I'm going to get in is if you let me. Whatever made you put those walls there, you're going to have to at least give me a clue so I can get past them."

"How should I know?" The Master said, a little angrier than she'd intended. She got up from the couch and pretended to do something useful.

"Master…your heart's door is all boarded up."

"So?" She shuffled some containers around.

"A guardian told me something had happened there. Something bad. Something so horrible you sealed your ability to connect away." The Master grew very still. "What was it?"

"It's got nothing to do with the drums." They were getting very loud now.

"Yes it does." He took her free hand. Through the link he let her feel his surface emotions: concern, sympathy and worry. She sent him nothing in return. "Master, keeping everything locked up's not doing you any good." The Doctor let her see more. He let her see the anger over what had been done to her, the sadness at the corruption of her mind and running through it all, the honest hope that she could be healed. The Master put down the container she holding in her other hand.

"I…" She squeezed her eyes shut. Why was this so hard? It was just a stupid mistake hundreds of years ago. The Doctor took both her hands in his. It was a comforting gesture, protective but not constraining.

"If you can't tell me, show me." The Master shook her head slowly.

"I don't want to relive it." She went over to the couch and sat down heavily in the corner. "It was a mistake," the Master said without preamble. "Something that shouldn't have ever happened. You remember how they always told us not to mess around with telepathy?" She laughed at her own ill choice of words. "After… we fell out, I went looking for other people. At first it was fine. I knew more than they did, I had more control and power and I knew how to use it. It was like being god over them.

"But one day I ran into someone who was better at it than I was. Much better. And she had a different idea of how things should go. She didn't just go in to my head; she dominated me. Any power I had, anything I wanted, anything I did, it was because she made it that way. I was nothing to her. She must have thought it was funny to take the big shot and break him down to nothing." The Master took a shuddering breath and went on.

"Eventually, she got bored of me and left me to fend for myself. I had to put myself back together while she went on to the next poor bastard." She stared at him coldly, daring him to comment. The Doctor said nothing. He crossed the room, sat down next to her and put his hands on her temples.

"It doesn't have to be that way." He whispered as he conjured up the old memory.

* * *

_"I'm telling you, it's not as hard as Professor Branum says. I bet we could do it ourselves." Said Theta Sigma. He was sitting on his bed in their cramped dorm room. "Come on, Koschei. He wouldn't have told us something like that and then sent us home for the weekend and not expect us to try it."_

_ "I don't know." Professor Branum had pulled that sort of trick before, but he wasn't sure if this was one of those times. "He said it could be really dangerous if you don't know what you're doing." Theta waved his hand back and forth._

_ "He says stuff like that all the time. Look, there's a way to make it safe. All we have to do is make it a double link. You try it on me and if something goes wrong I'll tell you to stop." Koschei was skeptical._

_ "You're no good at sending messages." He said doubtfully._

_ "Doesn't have to be a message. All I have to send you is 'good' or 'bad'. Negative/positive feedback. Easy as pie."_

_ "Well…" Theta smiled at him._

_ "Come on. Trust me." Koschei thought it over. He knew his friend was a sucker for new experiences. If he didn't do it, Theta would find someone else who would. The manipulation of sensations could leave someone permanently damaged if the manipulator wasn't careful — an occurrence that happened all too often when the manipulator wasn't concerned with the wellbeing of their subject. It was why the professors at the Academy warned their younger students not to attempt it on each other, and to especially not let the older students perform it on them out of curiosity. Koschei had heard stories about what happened to the guinea pigs of the more powerful students. He didn't want Theta to end up like that._

_ "Alright." He climbed up onto the bed and sat across from his friend. "But I'm not going try to make you feel anything that might hurt you."_

_ "Okay." Theta agreed. "Try to make me happy. You can't hurt me doing that." Koschei put his hands on either side of Theta's head. As he made the connection, he felt the other's curiosity and anticipation drift across. Behind that was a will to be calm and open, farther back laid an absolute trust in his friend. Koschei took comfort in that. He tried sending the suggestion of being happy. Nothing. He tried sending thoughts that were happy. Theta sent a slightly positive response, but with an undercurrent of 'that's not it'. Koschei tried to remember what Professor Branum had said. This different from what they had done before. Instead of sending something, he wanted to change what was already there. For a few minutes, he stopped attempting anything and just let Theta's mind become clear to him. He perceived it as an odd shape of multicolored energy floating in a void. 'Okay.' He thought. 'Now what?' Koschei tried to touch the shifting mass. He wasn't practiced enough in this to give himself a mental body or to look at anything but surface emotions and processes, so all he saw was an indentation appear on the shape. It rippled through. Several sections of the shape changed color slightly. Almost at once, Koschei felt a positive signal from Theta. He tried it again, then again and finally settled on a steady pressure. The shape's color danced and shifted. Koschei had no idea what this meant, but since he was getting increasingly positive signals from Theta, he supposed he must be doing something right. The section under his touch was a deep red now. Koschei wondered about that. Slowly, he lessened the pressure on it. The section began to fade back to the clear color it had been originally. As soon as he did it, he got a wave of negative from Theta. Koschei shrugged mentally and put the pressure back on, this time stronger than before. He was immediately rewarded with a slightly incoherent positive signal. He was beginning to think he should stop when the scream broke his concentration._

_ Koschei eyes snapped open. Theta was shaking all over and breathing very fast. His eyes were wild and wide, staring out at nothing. The link was broken now, but Koschei quickly pulled his hands away to avoid doing any more damage. He found that he couldn't bring them back all the way: Theta had his arms in a death grip._

_ "Theta? Theta, what's wrong?" His friend met his gaze, but said nothing. "Theta, talk to me!" Koschei was beginning to panic now. "Gods, Theta, if I was hurting you, you should have said so!"_

_ "You didn't…" Theta said quietly._

_ "What?"_

_ "You didn't hurt me." Theta released his arms. He breathing was slowing down, but he was still trembling._

_ "Don't lie to me, damn it! I heard you scream. Why didn't you tell me to stop?" Koschei demanded angrily. This was all his fault. He should have never trusted Theta to back down from something new. ' And now I've gone and hurt him.'_

_ "I'm not lying, Koschei." Theta seemed to have calmed down now. What ever had happened, he was recovering from it. "You didn't hurt me."_

_ "Then what happened?"_

_ "I… I felt…" Theta shook his head. "I can't describe it. It didn't hurt, it was just… overwhelming."_

_ "Theta, if you can't even think of a decent lie…"_

_ "I'm not lying." Theta held out his hands towards his friend. "I can prove it to you. Trust me."_

_And so he did._

_

* * *

_

Later, when the memory began to fade into the mists of the two friends falling into an exhausted sleep in each other's arms, the voice of the Doctor floated through the Master's mind.

'_You trusted me then. We opened up to each other and nothing but good came of it. Trust me now._'

The Master opened her eyes. The Doctor's face had the same serious expression he had worn on that day. She ran an affectionate hand down his face.

"You never change, do you?" He took her hand as it left his skin, holding it gently. The Doctor opened his mind and let the Master see a huge silver tree, ancient and scarred, but well tended. It was growing from the deepest parts of his mind. A wind blew through the leaves and the Master felt a wave of friendship, belonging and love. The tree was blooming, its long dormant energy bursting into life – tall and strong in proud defiance of its surroundings. The Master let her attention drift. All around were signs of destruction and devastation. Horrors had visited this place many times. She suddenly felt very guilty.

"All those things I did to you…

"They don't matter." He gave her hand a squeeze. "I've seen why you're this way. It's not your fault." His expression clouded. "Someone did this to you. But I can make it right." Without another word, the Doctor got up and walked over the chair he had been sitting in. The Master stretched out on the couch and put her head in his hands, this time trusting him completely.

The Doctor dove into the Master's mind as a shapeless consciousness, not bothering to give himself form. With trust of his friend, he quickly bypassed not only the outer wall, but many other obstacles that would have made the going very difficult. Despite his speed, he still noticed the destruction around him. The place looked like a gang of drunken dwarves, the German Blitzkerg and horde of Sontarns had started a contest over who could do the most damage, gotten into an argument over the rules and then decided to break each other while they were ripping apart everything else. The black kudzu he had seen from outside the city was all over the place, slowly breaking things down as it went. Just like it's real life counterpart, it grew fast and consumed what ever got in its way. He followed the kudzu back into the Master's mind. '_This is an effect. It's what hearing the drums all this time's done to her._' The real monster, the Doctor realized, was still to come.

Eventually, he made it past the most of the destruction and chaos. The kudzu was thick here, but now it was diverging from reality and running together into monstrously big vines that appeared to be heading towards a central source. The Doctor slowed his pace and formed himself into his usual body, choosing to walk through the final approach. He could hear the drumming now, a pulsing relentless beat drowning out any other sound.

As he approached, drums rose to a deafening volume. '_She's been dealing with this for years. I can stand it only for a few minutes._' Going up to the root of the vine however, the Doctor wasn't so sure. He could not only hear, but feel the noise pounding through his body in a four beat pattern. It ran slower than his hearts, causing an odd interference effect that was at first disconcerting, and then almost painful. The Doctor tried to ignore it, but the drums that ruled this place would not be denied. He looked around for a source. After a few seconds, he spotted it and was amazed he hadn't seen it before. A strange red beam of light was burning down from the sky, ever present and merciless, drilling a hole into the earth and feeding the black rot that festered in the Master's mind. The Doctor approached the cruel light, the sound of it ripping through his mental form. At this distance it was plain that there was no way he could stop the beam – it was far too powerful for him. '_I might not be able to turn it off, but I can keep it from hurting you._'

The Doctor discorporated and focused all his power into forming the block. He scooped up the earth that was the raw stuff of the Master's mind and shaped it into a solid, packed form. Coming around to the front side, he wove himself through the particles, making them resistant and reflective. '_You do not accept._' He told them. '_You repel. You turn back. You send away any that strikes you._' The Doctor built up a layer of the reflectors deep into the object, then returned to his bodily from. He went over his work with a careful hand to ensure that there were no cracks. Summoning his strength, he pushed the block into the way of the drums.

There was a reaction at once. Deprived of its source of life, the rot ripped itself out of the ground to face what had taken its food away. Despite himself, the Doctor took a step back as the nightmare creature loomed over him. The angry mass curled and writhed as it bellowed in a voice that would have struck fear into even the most emotionless of the Doctor's enemies.

"I AM MASTER HERE. WHO DARES INTERFERE WITH ME?"

"I dare." The Doctor set himself in front of the block. "You're not the master of anything. The Master is the ruler of this mind."

"LIES." The vines lowered themselves to examine the intruder. "THE MASTER HAS NOT RULED. THE MASTER DOES NOT RULE. I LIVE HERE. THIS IS MY WORLD. THIS IS MY RULE. I CONTROL THIS PLACE."

"Not anymore. You're time here is through. I'm taking her mind back from you."

"THE MASTER SENDS ANOTHER ALONE. SHE IS STILL UNABLE TO REPEL ME, AS SHE HAS BEEN BEFORE. _AS SHE AS EVER BEEN!_" The monster reared back and hurtled down to smash the Doctor. He jumped out of the way, but only just. Climbing to his feet, he shouted at the demon again.

"You're nothing but a parasite, an invader! You've no right to claim this mind!" He dove for cover as the vines came sweeping around again.

"THIS MIND IS UNCLAIMED! IT HAS BEEN UNCLAIMED AND WILD SINCE TIME BEYOND REMEMBERING. I HAVE CLAIMED IT." The Doctor stood from behind his rumble shield, angry and defiant.

"The only reason it's unclaimed is because you've broken her down so much!" He spat through gritted teeth. "She hasn't thrown you out is because you corrupted her so badly that she can't summon up a real defense!" The monster lurched forward, but then stopped halfway to him.

"YOU UNDERSTAND NOTHING." Its voice was still booming, but it was no longer angry in tone. "I AM WHAT HAS GROWN FROM THE SIGNAL… AND NOW I FADE WITHOUT IT." Indeed, the creature was beginning to whither. "BUT KNOW THIS, INTERPLOPER." The vines were now small, the whole plant receding to its origin. "I will return. When the drums ring out again, I will return."

"What do you mean you'll return?" The Doctor demanded. "What's happening here?"

"You understand nothing, and yet you see clear. I am not master here, but neither is she." The kuzdu was fading fast now that the Master's defenses were cutting it out from the root. "We are both puppets…"

"What do you mean? Tell me!"

"The true masters will not let her go. The drums will return… her madness – it is the way of this place, its nature."

"No." The Doctor said firmly. "I'm not going to let that happen."

"You… you are strong and clever, but even you can not alter destiny. I have seen it." The sickly voice became manic. "The future, my future, the end of the plan as it was meant to be."

"What future? What are you talking about?" The rot of the drums gave a chuckle, knowing that the withholding of this information would ensure its ultimate victory.

"You understand nothing." And with that, it died. The Doctor stood there for a long moment, staring at the eldritch beam of light in the sky.

"I don't believe in destiny." He told it. "And destiny doesn't believe in me. Whatever's meant to happen, I'm going to save her. I'm going to save her, do you hear me!" The beam gave no reply. He hadn't really expected it to. Fate never answered him when he shouted at it; it just went along as it pleased. The Doctor sighed. He'd done all he could do and now it was time to see if it had helped.

* * *

The Doctor returned to the physical world and almost fell out of his chair. He held the armrest of the couch and tried to focus on the real world. Yes, he had done what he could. Yes, he could still think. Yes, he was still there with the Master. Where was she anyway? Slightly dazed, the Doctor looked around for his friend. She had gotten up from the couch and dancing and shouting about something, a look of pure joy on her face.

'_Looks good enough to taste, doesn't she?_' The dark voice said.

'_Yes._' The Doctor thought back. '_Yes, she does._' He shook his head. '_What am I saying?_' The Master bounded over to him, grabbed both his hands and pulled him up of his seat. She led him in a crazy dance around the room.

"They're gone!" She sang. "They're gone, they're gone, they're gone! You did it!" It took a second for the Doctor to realize what she was saying.

"The drums?" She flung up her hands in triumph.

"What drums?" The Master threw her arms around him and swept his slim frame into a tight embrace. "You did it." She said into the fabric of his shirt. "Thank you." The Doctor instinctively put his arms around her in return and held her gently. This was nice; this was very, very nice. Who was he kidding? He hadn't felt this way in years. He took a deep breath, letting her smell fill his awareness. It was so good to have her in his arms again. It felt, not just good… but right, somehow. Like it was meant to be and they had just been running from it all these years.

"You're welcome." The Doctor said robotically. It wasn't what he really wanted to tell her, but the way they were standing made the skin-to-skin contact needed for a link difficult.

'_Unless you move a bit._' The dark voice said. '_Just a bit. You know how. You want to._'

'_I do want to…_' He responded absentmindedly. Fear gripped him for a moment then, but only for a second. This was the Master. She was his best friend, his first friend, his first lover. She was the one who comforted him and protected him when the rest of the world abandoned him. She was the one he had fallen sleep with and in whose arms he had woken up in countless times. She held a power over him that he could not ignore. '_And why should I?_'The Doctor let go of fear, tilted the Master's head up towards his and kissed her.


	5. The Dance

AN: "Warning: this story was intended for people who shop in the grown-up section of the bookstore… if you have to ask whether you will be offended, you probably will." – Abbie Hilton

Chapter Five: The Dance

The Master was free. She had listened the drums for centuries and now she was rid of them at last. For the first time since she was eight years old, she no longer heard the constant four beats in her mind. She could think clearly now, choose what she wanted freely and without the madness tainting her every whim. And she knew what she wanted.

The Master tasted the Doctor's mouth greedily, her hands diving under his shirt to find skin. His feelings ran into hers without words: desire, love, a sense of perfect inevitability being fulfilled. She opened herself to him and let her own desire meet his, the two of them reacting to each other with new fire. Breaking away from his mouth, she pulled the Doctor's shirt off. It was getting in the way. All of their clothes were. He seemed to have the same idea as he was tearing things of her almost as quickly. Now down to underclothes, they embraced again, reveling in the feel of skin on skin. The Master felt a strange, mind-melting pleasure as the Doctor ran his hands over her. She had never been on this side of an encounter before, but the Doctor certainly had and was using his knowledge well. He kissed her neck and rested his head against her shoulder, letting her catch her breath.

"I know you haven't done this before." He murmured. "If I do something you don't want me to, just say so. I don't want to push you into anything." He was breathing fast and she could feel what he wanted through their connection, but there was restraint there as well. He meant what he said, and that made her trust him all the more.

"Don't worry." She reassured him. The Master stroked a hand along the Doctor's spine, enjoying the view she now had down his back. She turned her head and whispered quietly in to his ear. "I want this." She ran her tongue along the edge of his ear and relished the shiver that ran through his body as she did it. "I want you." She pulled him even closer, bringing her hands lower and her mouth taste everything it could reach. The Master might have never been a woman, but she certainly knew the secret places of a man. And, more to the point, she knew the Doctor. His body might have changed since she had last explored it, but some things were fundamental. The Doctor succumbed to her touch and became the creature of pure feeling she had been only a moment before.

"Master…" He moaned. The Doctor's head arched back and she moved to capture the new ground. They fell forward and landed against a wall. The Master pinned him against it. She could feel his emotions, now reduced to twin threads of love and need. Holding him there, she could see that anything she did to him would be taken without question. A half-mad chant ran through the Doctor's mind, demanding more. She could do this to him for the rest of time and he would never ask her to stop. She paused her onslaught, letting the moment draw out.

"Use my name…"

"Master…" He could barely make the syllables out between ragged breaths. The Master brushed her hand across his chest with the lightest of teasing gestures. She had him at her mercy and was going to enjoy it. "Master…" He repeated, begging for more. She drew her hands just over the top of his body, only lingering in a few key places. With a devious smile, The Master wrapped her arms around his neck and locked her his hips with his.

"I like it when you use my name." She said, moving just enough to take advantage of her position. The Doctor shuddered, his eyes glazed and thoughts incoherent. The Master shifted her focus inward and viewed the images that were flashing through the Doctor's mind. She was just getting to some truly innovative positions when he kissed her suddenly, catching her off guard and breaking down her aggression until dominance slipped away from her. The Master fought him for control – a thoroughly enjoyable game of nipping and wrestling and other possessive tactile assaults.

They were just about to scar an otherwise innocent chair when the Master broke away from the Doctor. Taking him by the hand, she led him into one of the bedrooms. The Doctor scooped her up and put her on the bed. He took off what remained of his clothing and she did them same, tripping a bit on the fastenings. The Master sat up and held a hand out to him. He took it and she pulled him down on top of her.

Her senses exploded. The physical combined with the mental feedback was incredible. Gasping, she held on to the Doctor who was similarly overwhelmed. They clung to each other, the building of sensation growing stronger at an astonishing rate. The Master's perceptions were hypersensitive now – the tendons moving under his skin, the muscles shifting as he tried to breath, her own reactions to his body. She felt her mind dissolve. He was the only thing in her world now. No drums, no self, just his body on top of hers and his wild need mixing with her own. As he shifted position, she closed her eyes and went to his mind.

The Master was still connected to her body. She could hardly not be as the Doctor began to move. But she knew the place she was going well, and it became clear to her in moments. The surface of the Doctor's mind held some of the same patterns it did back when they were children, although these colors were more complex. She quickly found the place she wanted and poured energy in to it. She both felt and heard the Doctor react. The Master thought she heard her name, though she could not have said if it was the voice of this Doctor or a remembrance of his first self in her mind. She sent him a wordless positive signal, all she could muster in her current state. He returned it, and the two of them went on together. They climbed higher then either physical or mental could take them alone: sensation exploding over the bounds of their perception until there was no greater feeling possible. When it was over, the Doctor collapsed next to the Master and laid panting on the bed. She rolled over and wrapped her arms around him, barely able to form a coherent thought for her own exertions.

The Doctor smiled at her and showed her the ancient tree again, now stronger than ever. "I love you too." She said. He nodded, kissed her lightly on the forehead and closed his eyes. The Master nestled up against him and went to sleep. Her dreams were of the Doctor.

* * *

It was the first time of many times in those halcyon days. Left to their own devices away from the world, the Doctor and the Master's relationship reverted back to its most fundamental state. They worked to stay alive during the day and celebrated that life at night. They lived in a peace neither of them had known for centuries and let the universe drift along without them, happy to let it pass by.

But it was not to last. The forces that had brought them to this place had laid a trap for them – one so simple and obvious neither of them saw it coming. When there is dancing, and there was quite a lot of it, certain things are bound to follow.

"You're what?" The Doctor asked incredulously.

"Pregnant." Said the Master.

"But…" The Doctor sputtered. "How…? You…?" The Master laughed easily.

"Now, Doctor, lets not be children." She took on a parent's tone. "It's not as if we haven't been going at it like rabbits."

"But…" The Doctor sat down heavily on the couch. He held his head in his hands, his blood running cold with dread. "I don't think I can handle being a father again."

"Well how do you think I feel?" The Master demanded.

"It's not that I don't want to. My first family, all of them…" He sat very still, trying hard not think about what had become of his last family. Their faces flashed through his mind, the horrible image of Gallifrey burning in the fire of the two suns, the Time War, everyone dying, dying a million times and him helpless to do anything but add to the body count. Not again. He couldn't take that again. The crushing, soul-killing pain of that loss had almost undone him once. It was two lifetimes since then and he could still feel the blood running hot through his fingers. And now there would be more to lose.

"Doctor?" The Master had sat down beside him, one arm around his shoulders. "What's wrong?" He looked into her eyes. This was the one thing he could not tell her. She had run away from the Time War. She didn't know there were no more fields of red grass under the orange sky, no more silver trees, no more mountains, no more Time Lords and no more Gallifrey.

"I'm afraid." He said at last. "My last family is gone. And it hurt so much to lose them. I don't think I could take it again."

"Doctor," the Master said quietly, "I'm not going anywhere. And neither is this child when it's born. Although, if it's anything like you, we'll have to put it on a leash." The Doctor laughed.

"You're one to talk. You ran away at every turn." The Master waved a hand in the air.

"Details." She waved his hand. "Stop worrying so much. We're safer here than anywhere else in the whole universe." She felt his anxiety through the newly created link and sent comfort out to meet it.

"You don't know that." He said gravely.

"Yes, I do. The radio's been transmitting for months and we haven't heard a thing. We're in some little corner of space and time so far off the beaten path neither of us know it. And we have each other." The Doctor smiled at her.

"I suppose you're right…"

"Of course I am. Now stop moping and make me a sandwich. I'm eating for two now and I'm starving."

* * *

The Master was wrong about everything she told the Doctor in reassurance that day. Eight months later, they found out she had been eating for not two, but three. She brought a boy and a girl into the world, both strong and curious like their parents. The girl was a bright little child who laughed often and wielded a sharp tongue from the moment she learned to use it. The boy was more reserved but kind in his own way, reminding his parents of the Doctor in his fifth life. They had wondered how to go about naming the children – as much as they cherished certain parts of their childhood, neither of them agreed with the practices of their home world as far as offspring were concerned. Besides, in this isolated place they lacked the people, locations and other implements to perform a proper Gallifreyan naming. In the end, they had decided to go with simply choosing names.

"Hazel!" The Master said sharply. "Put that down."

"But, Mummy... I need it." The child protested

"And what could you possibly need a kitchen knife for?"

"Duncan says we need it for the tree house." She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. "He's _so_ busy building everything he says he can't stop and get it himself." The Master snatched the knife out of her daughter's hand.

"Well, you tell him there'll be no taking of kitchen knives for building projects. Now get." The girl looked annoyed at first, but then ran out of the building shouting. Her calls flittered back to the Master

"I told you, Duncan! I told you she wouldn't give it to us!" The Master threw the knife down on the table with a sigh.

"Those kids are getting more difficult every day."

"It's all part of the job." The Doctor said, coming out of their shared bedroom. "And it only gets stickier from here, I'm afraid. What'd Hazel want with a knife?"

"She claims Duncan needed it for their tree house. You should really go help them with it."

"I would, but they won't let me." The Doctor rummaged through the cabinets, searching for food. "They want to do it themselves. Independent little buggers, those two."

"Just like their father."

"And their mother." The Doctor interjected good-naturedly. The Master came up behind him and slid her arms around his waist.

"Not that independent." She rested her head on his shoulder. The Doctor put his free hand over hers and let an idea trickle into her mind.

"Doctor…" She whispered. "Not while the kids are awake."

The Doctor projected an image of the twins working all day, the sun marking the passage of time until the stars came out. The only outward sign of his plot was an impish grin growing on his face.

"True…" She kissed his neck. "And we haven't done that one in quite a while." The Master let some of her memories of the last time drift into the link. Although the Doctor continued to give no outward sign but the smile, she could feel his body shift. He was just about to turn around and kiss her properly when Duncan walked into the room.

"Mummy, Daddy, I need to something to cut with." The Master released the Doctor and turned around.

"Mmm… that something wouldn't happen to be the knife you sent your sister in here to retrieve, would it?"

"I didn't say for her to get a knife." He informed her.

"Really?"

"I said for her to get something big that would cut things." The boy corrected.

"Duncan, I know you and Hazel want to build this yourselves, but you really should let me do the cutting." The Doctor said. The boy looked sullen.

"I want it to be our house."

"I know." The Doctor knelt down and put his hands on his son's shoulders. "But you're not big enough to do that kind of chopping. You're doing all the important parts. It's your design and you and Hazel are building it all on your own." Duncan sighed.

"Okay…" He still was unconvinced.

"Come on, now. Don't look like that." The Doctor straightened up and offered a hand to his son. "Just tell me what you need and it'll be back to you and Hazel again, alright?"

"Okay." He said, more certain this time. Father and son went out into the bright sunshine, blissfully unaware that the house was doomed never to be completed. The forces that had brought the Doctor and the Master to this place had seen the children and were moving once again to fulfill their goals. Unbeknownst to them, the wrongness of the Master's words all those years ago was about to become painfully clear.


	6. The Capture

AN: Hello, lovely readers! Before we get to the story I'd like to make a quick request. I know people are reading this. In fact, I've got more traffic on this story than any other fan fic I've ever published. That is fantastic, but I'd really like to get some reviews. There's one person who always writes one (and I very much appreciate them), but aside from that I haven't heard from anyone else. So, if you're enjoying the story, please take a view minutes to click that pretty little "review this story" link at the bottom of the page. Alright, enough talking: it's story time!

"Warning: this story was intended for people who shop in the grown-up section of the bookstore… if you have to ask whether you will be offended, you probably will." – Abbie Hilton

Chapter Six: The Capture

"_Homebase", MAXA Breeder Planet "Castaway"_

Hunter Trixam moved quietly through the undergrowth. This mission was going to be much more difficult than her last, both on her and her quarry. Enzo had asked her to do the initial capture as a favor, appealing to her ego as a hunter and physic operative. It was only when she had read the description of the follow up mission that she understood his real motive. Having taken the capture, she was both law and honor-bound to make sure the specimens were returned. If she had thought about it, she never would have agreed to the assignment – she hated breaking up parents and offspring. If they stayed together at all, even the lowest animals felt distress at being separated and Trixam's religion was such that causing pain was the greatest of sins and to be avoided whenever possible.

She sighted the off spring playing on the beach. They laughed in the salty spray, freely calling challenges to each other.

"I can swim out farther than you!" One shouted.

"Can not!" Said the other.

"Can so!" The first one plunged out farther into the surf. The second stood resolute.

"Mummy and Daddy said not to go out so far." The first offspring, a female by the looks of it – though at this age it was hard to tell – planted her hands on her hips.

"That's just coz you're so short. I can go farther coz I'm taller than you."

"Just by a little!" The second, probably a male, shouted back. "You've only got a few centimeters on me."

"Well take this, Mr. Few Centimeters!" She launched herself at him, knocking him back into the sea. The rolled about in the water.

"Shorty!"

"Giant!"

"Twig!"

"Slitheen!"

Trixam's heart sank lower and lower as she watched them. They were talking with obvious intelligence. They were playing with each other. And if what the male had said was true, the specimens were caring for the offspring in a way far beyond what she should be seeing. This wasn't a mission to retrieve specimens of a mindless breeding – she was here to kidnap these children and separate them from their parents forever. Trixam leaned against a tree and tried to decide what to do. '_I can't turn back._' She finally thought. '_I've come this far and I'm bound by my contract and my oath. If I turn away from this, they'll just send in some brute with a stun gun._' Trixam bowed her head in prayer. '_Spirit of us all, please let this be clean and without suffering._' She steeled herself and moved towards the children.

* * *

The Master knew something was wrong at once. Call it a mother's intuition, or a Time Lord's senses, but the first words out of her mouth when Duncan burst through the door spoke of knowledge that she herself did not yet possess.

"Where's Hazel?"

"I don't know." The frightened boy stammered. He clenched his hands in front of him, trying desperately to stop them shaking. "I… saw her get taken." The Master crossed the room and got down to her son's level.

"Taken by who?" She said with a calm that did not at all reflect what she felt.

"I don't know. A…" Duncan trailed off, trying to think of the word. "A stranger." He looked his mother in the eye, his own wide and afraid. "A stranger, Mummy. Someone I've never seen before."

"What happened exactly?"

"We were playing on the beach. It came at us from the trees. I was afraid, but Hazel…" Duncan looked down, his young voice shaking. "Hazel went up to it. I said it wasn't a good idea. I said not to do it…" Tears began to drip from his eyes. "But she didn't listen…" He looked up at the Master. "It grabbed her, Mummy. She was screaming for me to help but I ran. It was so big and I was so scared. Please don't be mad." He stood there, crying out of shame and fear. The Master gathered him into her arms and held him tightly.

"I'm not angry. You did the right thing, Duncan. If you had tried to do anything, it would have taken you too." She pulled the boy back to look him in the face. "I need you to be brave now. Can you do that for me?" Duncan nodded vigorously through his sniffles. "Good. I need you to hide. Somewhere safe. Somewhere even Daddy and I wouldn't think to look for you." The Master thought quickly. "Somewhere you can see the clothesline from. When it's safe to come out, we'll hang something blue on it, but don't move until then. Do you understand?" Duncan nodded again.

"Good boy." The Master hugged him again. "Now go." The boy ran off towards the door, but stopped halfway out.

"Mummy?" He asked. "You're going to get Hazel back, right?"

"Yes." She put on a smile for him. "Everything's going to be alright." As he left, the Master let the dark thoughts she was hiding surface. '_I'm going to get her back. Even if I have to tear the bastard who took her limb from limb._' She grabbed a kitchen knife from the drawer. It was the same one Hazel had tried to take all that time ago. A part of the Master that had been long dormant uncoiled itself as she stared at the metal edge. Yes, she was going to make whoever did this pay. There would be pain for the one who did this, oh yes. Pain beyond anything they could imagine.

Strangely enough, this time she was right.

* * *

The Doctor knew the sound of terrified running when he heard it. He had been out searching for the last of the summer fruits when his son's footfalls reached his ears. He was turning to see who was coming when Duncan half tackled him.

"Daddy!" He said, clinging tightly to the Doctor's waist. The boy buried his face in his father's shirt, new tears soaking the fabric.

"Duncan? What's wrong? What are you doing here?"

"I… Hazel…" He tried to say.

"Slow down." The Doctor peeled his son off him to understand better. "Start at the beginning." Duncan quickly rattled off the story.

"But there's something else…" He said as he finished. "When I left, I looked back through the window. Just for a second. I saw Mummy, but she didn't see me. She was holding a knife and had a real scary look on her face." The boy paused for a second. He hadn't told his parents he was able to feel emotions through skin contact and didn't think this was a good time to break the news. "I think… I think she's going to do something really bad." The Doctor's blood ran cold. If there was anything that would restart the Master's madness for causing pain, it was this. And if Duncan was picking up on it, the Doctor was going to have to find her fast. He took a breath and steadied himself.

"Thank you for telling me that. Go do what Mummy told you. Everything's going to be okay." Father and son took off in different directions. '_Please let me be wrong,_' the Doctor thought as he tore through the woods.

He caught up with her halfway to the beach. Just like Duncan had said, she looked ready to kill. The Doctor approached her slowly.

"Master… I ran into Duncan. He told me what happened." The Master turned and locked eyes with him.

"Good." She said. "You can help." The Doctor walked up to her and stood at arms length.

"You really should give me that." He held out his hand. "We don't want to hurt anyone." The Master's face contorted into a snarl.

"Maybe you don't." Her grip on the handle tightened until her knuckles were white. "But I do."

"Master, this isn't the answer. Killing whatever took Hazel might endanger her."

"Not if I make it tell me where she is first." The Master began walking toward the beach, but the Doctor stopped her.

"We should try talking to it first. See why it's here. See if we can figure something out."

"You damn fool." She glared at him, all pretense of sanity falling away. "If it was going to talk, it would have bloody well done it already!" The Master shoved past him. "I'm getting her back. And I'm going to make sure the bastard who took her pays for it."

"Master!" The Doctor ran to catch up with her. He nearly collided with her when she stopped dead, staring at a figure that had come suddenly out of the undergrowth.

"You…" She growled. The creature walked forward slowly with its hands empty and open. The Doctor, used to this sort of thing, took this as a sign of peace. The Master had other ideas. She ran towards the creature, knife upraised.

"Master, don't!" He shouted, but it was too late. She connected with the stranger, the blade cutting angry green slashes across the other's skin. The Doctor ran to them and pulled her off. She struggled and kicked as he did it, now as furious with him as the intruder.

"You fucking traitor!" She yelled. "It took our children! Let me go!" The Doctor got a hold of the hand the blade in, but not before he received cuts of his own across his left side. He could feel her fury as much as see it now – his hands were clenched around her bare wrists. He tried to send calm to her, but she blocked him out so fast it almost felt like a physical blow. The creature brushed itself off and stood up.

'_I thank you,_' said a voice in his mind.

"Get out of my head, you bitch!" The Master shouted at it. Belatedly, the Doctor realized that the voice had been female.

'_I apologize if this mode of communication disturbs you, but I am unable to make the sounds necessary for your speech,_' the creature said.

"Did you take our daughter?" The Doctor asked.

"Of course she did!" The Master said before the other could respond. "Who else would have done it?" The creature ducked her head, but then looked straight at them as she gave her answer.

'_I did. I have been sent here for all of you. It is most… unfortunate that this situation has occurred. Normally, I do not accept a mission that inflicts so much pain as I am bound by the Oath of Hunters. I was tricked into taking this contract and must by that same oath carry it out._' The voice's tone shifted became less formal. '_I do not wish to see either of you in pain. Please come with me without struggle._'

"Never." The Master spat. She wrenched free of the Doctor. "I don't care what stupid contracts or oaths you're under. Give me back my daughter." Her voice was low and feral, but the creature was unmoved.

'_I understand,_'was all it said as the Master attacked it once more. Almost faster than the Doctor could see, the creature disarmed her, secured her a firm grip and pressed something on her belt. The both of them disappeared in a flash of light, leaving the Doctor alone on the beach.

She returned a few hours later to find the Doctor where she had left him. He was sitting on a rock near the beach were the Master had attacked her. "Hello." He said quietly. "Come to get me now, have you?"

'_That is correct; you are the last._'

"What I don't get is, why come for us?" He slid off the rock and started walking towards her. "Why show up out of the blue and start grabbing children, ay? Why take their mother? And the father too?" The Doctor stood close and leaned into her face. "Why come for our family?" He snapped back and began pacing the beach. "Coming for one of us, that I can understand. After the Master, after me, that I get. Have a go at the children, well…" He fixed her with deadly stare. "There are lots of people who would stoop to that trick." The Doctor let his voice become light again. "But why take all of us?"

'_Because I must._'

"See, that's not a good answer." He closed the distance between them. "Why are you really here? Who are you working for? You don't want to do this, you said so. So why do it?"

'_I am bound to,_' Trixam replied.

"There's another one of those bad answers again." The Doctor's voice became dangerous. "I saved you back there because I want my daughter back alive and unharmed. And you're going to give her and Duncan and the Master back to me." Trixam gave no reply. "I'm being very calm right now because you're the only way to find them, but I can make things very difficult." Trixam could feel the waves of fury riding an undercurrent of terror coming off him. "Now where are they?" He demanded. The Hunter only looked at him sadly.

'_I'm sorry._' She said finally. '_I'm so, so sorry._' Her inner voice was full of shame and sadness. She put her hands on the Doctor's arms. He was so shocked at hearing his own words spoken to him he didn't notice. She was saying them how he felt them. When he apologized to someone like that, it was because he had no way to save them. The voice steeled itself. '_But I must do this._' He felt a wave of exhaustion sink into his mind.

"Don't – w-wait!" The Doctor knew what was happening but couldn't do anything to stop it. "I just want to live with them…" His vision became fuzzy and his legs buckled under him. "Don't take it away… please…" The savior of worlds fell into night, helpless to do anything to save his own.

* * *

Trixam closed the door to the Doctor's cell. She moved like a zombie to the sealed room in the back of the ship. It was not time for this yet, but if she didn't do it now, the emotions running through her mind would consume her. The secret room was a comforting place, quiet and insulated. She went in, shut the door behind her, and screamed. She let the anger at the injustice of it all burn out of her like the blast of a dying star. When it ran out, she sank into despair and cried until she was a crumpled heap on the floor. Hazel's young rage, the Master's insane hatred, Duncan's fear and defiance, the Doctor's knowing dread and sadness, they were all hers. Their emotions ran through her mind and Trixam knew them as her own. It was the penance of the Hunters. They wielded almost unchecked power, but what ever they did, whatever pain they caused; they took in as their own suffering. Trixam lay on the floor of the room, empty for now. She knew it would get worse – there was still more to do. Her apprehension echoed the Doctor's and her tears began anew. Why had she even taken this job? Trixam suddenly sat up, her course of action clear.

"Enzo Tapori," she said out loud to no one, "you'd better run." Trixam stood up and went out into the ship. She was still dreaded of what the rest of the job required, but there would be justice. She was going to find Enzo Tapori, and when she did, there would be hell to pay.

A.N.: The next chapter involves a lot of little details from the finale of season 3, so watch it if you get the chance between now and then.

Remember, if you like getting reviews – give one : )


	7. The Release

AN: "Warning: this story was intended for people who shop in the grown-up section of the bookstore… if you have to ask whether you will be offended, you probably will." – Abbie Hilton

Chapter Seven: The Return

_Malcassairo_

Chaos ruled the city. Disaster had come down suddenly and without warning, crushing everything in its wake. Citizens of the city, once far to used to maladies and now soft from easy times, were falling left and right. At first, there had been fury. Some had attacked the great tree that was inexpiably linked to the malaise, though no one could say why. Others were swept away at the re-emergence of the black rot. A few had simply been undone by the disaster, their existence dependant on the previous good conditions. Those that were left either went mad or fell into despair. Life was meaningless, all was lost and the greatest trust betrayed. There was no point in going on.

The Master sat alone in the doorway of the emergency TARDIS. He was male again: a small, scrawny boy with dark tresses and eyes that spoke of a deep sadness that was hundreds of years old. He had chosen this form because he didn't want to be an adult. Something terrible had happened to him, but that was all he knew. He wasn't didn't know how he had gotten there, or how he had regenerated, or why he wanted so much to forget what he was trying to remember. The Master was only sure of two things: he was running away from the other Time Lords and he was furious with the Doctor. '_But why?_' He put his head in his hands and stared at the ground. '_Every time I think of him I feel betrayed and angry. What's he done now that I want to hurt him so much?_' It wasn't the usual loathing that burned like a banked fire in the back of his mind – this feeling was sharp and fresh. Whatever it was, the Master wasn't sure he wanted to remember. He had spent a night doing nothing but attempting to recall it, but he ending up becoming so enraged and upset that he had smashed the TARDIS almost to the point of its destruction. Lying on the floor afterwards, he heard echoes of what had been erased:

'…_bastard let her do it… he was in on it… fake, lying son of a… he put on a show! It was just to make more… I trusted that bastard…sold us out…don't apologize to me, you…make you pay…_' These thoughts went on in the same strain for a long time, until he heard the most astonishing thing of all:

'…_I thought he loved me…_'

The female voice that had said it told as much as the words themselves – it wanted to be furious, but could only feel the despair of utter perfidy. The Master shuddered. He had become a child to avoid that hurt, he knew. He didn't want to deal with adult things anymore. Not now, not ever. Even though he couldn't remember what caused it, his hearts still ached when he thought of those feelings. It was never the Master's way to let things go, but the pain was so consuming that he couldn't think of facing the Doctor. He stood up and went into the TARDIS. Taking the watch from a shelf, he placed it into the Chameleon Arch and put the device on his head.

"Make me forget." He told it. "Make me forget everything." The ship did so, but ripped itself apart in the process. Unfortunately, it was sitting on a pocket of natural gas that combined with the TARDIS's energies to create something the locals would come to call "The Silver Devastation". The Master, no longer the Master, was flung to the very edge of the explosion where fate was waiting for him.

* * *

"_The Hunting Bird", Earth Orbit_

"A breeding experiment?" The Doctor asked incredulously.

'_Yes. My contract is with the Multidimensional Anti-Xenocide Agency. I was the one who took you and the other to Castaway._'

"But why take us out then? We were happy; we had children. If you wanted to bring back the Time Lords, why didn't you just leave us?" Trixam raised her hands to her head and dropped them again. The Doctor assumed this was the Hunter equivalent of a shrug.

'_It is said that money is what makes the galaxies spin. MAXA is not always funded as it should be. Your intervention was cut. Simple breeding cannot save your race and those above my employer did not wish to invest the lab time._'

"Can't you just let us go?" The Doctor asked. "Put us back on the planet, pretend like nothing happened. We won't blow it up or anything."  
A pause. '_I am letting you go. But I cannot return you to Castaway. MAXA has a strict "least interference" policy._'

"What is it was time traveling races and non-interference policies? They don't work; they just cause trouble for people trying to make things better."

'_I do not know the reasons behind my employer's decisions. I am leaving you where and as I found you._' Trixam began flipping switches.

The Doctor's eyes grew wide. "Wait…" He looked around his cell, going over the walls carefully. He turned back to the Hunter. "You're going to wipe my memory…"

'_Yes._' Trixam said flatly. The Doctor pressed himself to the barrier began to plead desperately.

"Listen, please, you don't understand." The machine began to warm up. "The Master and I, we…" He pounded a fist against the plastic in frustration. "We have a history. So much has gone between us, we used to be enemies, but now things are better. We lived together, our children, the past, we fixed it all!"

'_I know that you love her._'

The Doctor turned around and continued his ramble. "Oh, sure, you know. But you don't care do you? You're just going to let this happen." He faced her again. "I fixed her! She's been crazy for almost her entire life. I was there when he snapped." The Doctor threw his fists against the plastic. "I was there when he walked into my room and wasn't himself anymore! I was the one he came to for help and I couldn't save him! My best friend in all the worlds and I couldn't do a damn thing." He let his head fall against the wall. "I've spent ten lives trying to make up for that. But no matter how many people I save, it's never enough." The Doctor locked eyes with Trixam. "Don't take that away from me, please. There's so much I can't change – please don't make me forget." The Hunter walked over to the window and stared at her prisoner. She had never seen a specimen so distressed. Trixam bowed her head, refusing to look him in the eye.

'_I am sorry. I am very, very sorry. I have no choice in this._'

"Yes, you do." The Doctor said desperately. "There's always a choice, a third option. Something you haven't thought of." She raised her hands and let them fall again.

'_The only time there is remembering is when there are cues that cannot be erased. The mind is not the only thing that remembers. The spirit always remembers._' She looked significantly at the Doctor's left side and then finally met his gaze. '_Sometimes the body does as well when there are things that cannot be undone._' Trixam watched him struggle to understand her hint, praying all the while that he would figure it out in time. At the last moment before the machine engaged, it clicked.

* * *

_London, England, Earth_

"Doctor? You alright?" A voice asked from somewhere next to him. "Hello?" He knew the voice, but its identity wasn't coming to him. It was someone he wasn't used to being around anymore. Reaching back, it came to him.

"Martha?"

"No, it's a Dalek." Something about the comment made the Doctor's hearts freeze for a moment, though he couldn't have said why. "Did you fall asleep?"

"Must've." He sat up and rubbed the back of his neck. "How long have you been gone? The sun's almost down. Not safe to go wandering about on your own."

"Well, excuse me." Martha planted her hands on her hips. "I'm not the one who fell asleep on a park bench for three hours."

"What?" The Doctor looked at his watch. "That can't be." The dial said that three hours had indeed passed, but his body didn't feel as if it had been in the same position for that long. '_Come to think of it, I don't feel right at all._' He stood up and went over his clothes, checking for smell and taste. He found nothing out of place.

"Doctor, what are you doing?" Martha asked. He ignored her. Something was wrong and he needed to find out what. Digging in his pocket, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and ran in over himself. Nothing.

"It can't be." He said, determined to find something that would tell him what was going on.

"Doctor," Martha persisted, "tell me what's wrong. Aliens, time monsters, crazy diseases, what?" The Doctor went over his companion with the sonic until she got fed up and caught his wrist.

"Doctor!" She ducked to catch his eye. "Talk to me." The Doctor stared at her hand in disbelief. He could feel her surface emotions: mostly annoyance with an undercurrent of concern, but there was no interaction, no sign, nothing at all. He sent out a summation of his concerns, but she gave no response. It was like talking to a deaf person. '_Of course she can't hear me, she's human._' The Doctor shook himself mentally and pulled his wrist back.

"Nothing." He said finally. "Just a bit out of sorts I guess. Never mind." He put the screwdriver away. "Let's head back to the TARDIS." Martha looked skeptical, but fell into step next to him. They headed out of the park towards the alley they had left the ship in.

'_What the hell's gotten into him now?_'Martha thought.'_Probably all starry-eyed about Rose again._' He did seem like he was when she was mentioned, or in those few rough days after he had come back from being John Smith. The Doctor never said when he was upset, but Martha had been traveling with him long enough to know when something was bothering him. His walk became faster, his smiles less real, his speech more filled with nonsense. He became obsessed with the tiniest things as if becoming completely absorbed in something new would fill up his mind and push out the emotions. '_You just keep pushing things away until you explode, you oblivious bastard. Can't tell about other people's feelings coz you can't even deal with your own._' Martha was just about to confront him when she noticed he was no longer beside her. Turning around, she spotted him standing on the path a few meters behind her.

The Doctor was standing stock still, hands jammed into his pockets, staring at a children's play area. Martha followed his gaze to a pair of kids, probably brother and sister, chasing each other around the trees. "Doctor?" She called to him. "You coming or what?" When he didn't answer, she walked over to him, prepared another sentence, then let it die in her mouth. The Doctor looked as if his dog had been shot.

"Doctor…" Martha stood between him and the children. "What's wrong?" The Doctor's voice was craggy and broken.

"It's like when you forget something that's important. Like a memory from when you where a kid. You're walking along and something reminds you of it but you you've got no clue what it was." A shot of pain ran down his left side. "But you remember how you felt." Martha looked from the Doctor to the children and back again.

"But why kids?" The Doctor shook his head.

"Let's go back to the TARDIS."

* * *

_Malcassairo_

The man who found the boy on the edge of the disaster knew where to look. He had already viewed these events from one perspective and understood the role he had to now play to keep the fabric of space-time from becoming even more frayed. The man, who now went by the name of Wilson Yana, took the unconscious child back to his small living quarters in the refuge.

"What'd you find, Wil?" His partner asked as he walked in the door.

"A kid." He slung the unconscious child off his shoulder and on to the small couch. "Found him right on the edge of the blast. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was in it." While his partner moved to examine the child, Wilson quickly took an ancient watch out of his pocket and hid it in a side table drawer.

"Hmm…" Kenzo looked over the boy. He had been training to be a doctor when his ark ship had crashed on Malcassario. Unfortunately, the landing had killed most on board. Kenzo was one of the few had been lucky enough to survive and join the refugees working for Utopia. "Pretty sure he's human."

'_He is now._' Wilson thought to himself. "Yeah, seems to be."

"What do you think we should do with him?" Kenzo asked.

"Well…" Wilson said, pretending to think about it, "we should see if he belongs to anyone. Children are so rare these days that we might get shot for kidnapping if we didn't. If no one turns up…" he shrugged. "Maybe we could take care of him."

"Wil, do you really mean that?" Kenzo asked. Wilson smiled. He knew how much Kenzo wanted children. He had purposely come up with excuse after excuse to avoid adopting one until now for this very reason.

"I think it's time." He took his partner's hand. "Only if you want to, of course."

"Yes." Kenzo's face lit up into a board smile Wil hadn't seen since he had asked him to co-habituate. "Thank you." He kissed him. "I know you're worried about it, but it'll work out. We'll make it work – the three of us."

* * *

Harry Yana was a strange child. He wasn't anything like his parents, not having the Terran features of either or taking much from them in the way of personality. He was friendly enough towards both, but never formed strong bonds to his caretakers or anyone else, spending most of his childhood tinkering or staring at the stars. During his teen years, he discovered that there were some benefits to being friendly with others and became quite the local Casanova. But like the ancient character, real love eluded him.

"I don't care about any of them, Papa Wil." He said to his father one day. "I want to sleep with them because I like having sex, but I don't feel anything at all. They don't matter… they're not… not…" He trailed off. It sounded so stupid.

"Not what?" Wilson asked. The youth looked away.

"You won't believe me. It's too weird."

"Nothing's too weird. Most of the stories I told you when you little are true. You think weirdness bothers me?" Harry looked at him with wide eyes.

"Even the one with the giant baby fat monsters?" Wilson gave him an enigmatic smile.

"It could be." Harry gave a halfhearted laugh. He picked up a rock and threw it into the sky.

"I just wish I could go out there. Maybe if I could find someone who could read lives, I could find out how crazy I am." He sighed. "I have dreams." The young man fell quiet but Wilson waited. "Dreams about… a man." He looked up at the stars again. "And I love him. I love him more than anyone else. I've known him since I was a little kid and he's my best friend and I love him." Yana kicked a rock down the hill. "But I also hate him. I want him to suffer because I'm mad at him. Because he betrayed me." He ran a hand through his hair and tapped at his skull in a four beat pattern. "And he's out there, Papa Wil. Somewhere out in the stars, he's there."

"You'll find him some day." Wilson said.

"Oh, don't give me that." Harry scoffed. "I know it's stupid – you don't have to humor me."

"No, I really think you will." Wilson insisted, remembering what was to come. Harry turned and stormed off. As he left, Wilson imposed the image of old man who would one day introduced himself as "Professor" on the retreating figure, and noted with Pyrrhic amusement how well it fit. '_Mission accomplished._' He thought to himself. '_Now it's up to them._'

* * *

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor was standing naked before a mirror in his bedroom. He had managed to convince Martha that everything was okay and shoo her away to her own room on the ship. With his newfound privacy, the Doctor stripped down and examined himself. Running down his left side was a set of thin angry scars whose origins where a complete mystery. He almost called in Martha to look at them, but stopped when a vision of a strange woman flashed across his vision. He stood close to the glass, running his fingers across the taunt lines of skin.

"Where did you come from?" He asked. As if in response, the Doctor was pulled back into the memory. He was fighting with a woman to stop her from hurting someone. She was fighting in a furious, brutal manner and he couldn't catch her hands. The knife was cutting into his flesh but he was ignoring it, his focus only on her. With every cut, more of the memories came back to him.

Slash. The sensation of her body in his hands.

Slash. His son's terrified eyes.

Slash. The breakfast with his family.

Slash. Him waking up tangled in the woman's limbs.

Slash. A presence in his mind, pushing places that took him higher and higher.

Slash. A kiss, deep and sweet with promises of pleasures to come.

Slash. A feeling of love long restricted now free to flourish.

Slash. A beautiful smile and the knowledge of great corruption undone.

The memories trickled into his awareness like an IV drip, slow and calculated. The Doctor wanted to press, wanted to speed up the images and pry their secrets out into the open, but knew he couldn't risk damaging them. He didn't have long to wait, though. His hearts began to race as the pieces fell together in his conscious mind. The Master, him, the island, his family, the Hunter. Gone, lost and failed again. The once friendly walls of his room seemed to close in on him. The air, which was always regulated to be safe for its breathers, seemed to deliver no oxygen to his lungs. The Doctor clutched the edge of the mirror and closed his eyes against the angry tears building in them.

"No…" he whispered. "No, no, no…" The Doctor let go and slid down to the floor. The mirror was cold against his bare skin but he leaned against it anyway. In his mind, a voice played over and over again.

"I love you."

He wondered if it were still true; if she could find it in her hearts to forgive him a second time. He doubted it. The Doctor curled in on himself and wished desperately for someone to hold on to. "Master…" He hugged himself tighter. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." But it wasn't enough. It would never be enough. All the wishing in the world wouldn't bring her back to him, and even if it did, what then? It didn't matter that this wasn't his doing; the Master would blame him anyway. '_The spirit always remembers; that's what the Hunter said. _She_ won't know why, but she's going to hate me more than ever. And she'll be completely insane on top of it._'

"I've made it worse. All that time and I just made it worse." He said out loud. "Some doctor I am." The lights dimmed and then flashed.

"It's okay, girl. I'll be alright. Keep heading for Cardiff. Got to feed you soon."

The light turned red.

"It's just another mistake, not any different from the rest."

The lights changed from red to cerulean to jade in quick succession before settling on a burnt orange tone. The Doctor got on his feet and screamed at the ship.

"Well what do you propose I do then? Huh? I can't go back now! I don't even know where she is, or who she is!" He flung his hands out and smashed the knuckles of his right hand against the mirror. The lights continued to shift angrily, but he ignored them, his attention fixed on his reflection. Voices of his childhood began to sing in his head.

"Half-breed."

"Idiot."

"Weirdo."

"Failure."

In his mind he was surrounded by a group of kids, all laughing and mocking him. Koschei should have been there to protect him, but he was gone – lost to the drums and his own demons. The Doctor was alone with his failure. He stared down his reflection, hating every bit of it. He pulled his fist back to shatter the image, but stopped when the voices of childhood gave way to those dead by his hand. The ghosts of every being the Doctor had ever killed appeared in his mind's eye, swirling around in a thick miasma of guilt. In his head, a dalek spoke.

"The emotions you hold so precious are your downfall: you will become as we are."

"No." He said, as much to himself as the dalek. "I'm not like you. I refuse to be."

"Empty words! The Doctor will become one of us. Emotions make you weak – they make you destroy." The Doctor lowered his arm and turned away from the mirror.

"I'm not like you." He pulled all of his focus inward. The Doctor took every bit of emotion, every piece of feeling, every scrap of pain, every needle of sorrow and forced it into the smallest form he could manage.

'_I shrink you._'

He summoned a mental box with thick steel sides and a heavy padlock. Splitting his power, the Doctor held the compression with one part and shoved the emotion into the box with the other. He slammed the lid shut.

'_I isolate you._'

The Doctor closed the lock on the box and spun the dial. The container shook and bucked in his grip – the energies contained in it desperate to be freed.

'_I contain you._'

He picked up the box and walked to the edge of a bottomless pit. This was where it took all the feeling he couldn't deal with. All too often, things escaped and came back to haunt him. He could already feel the strong waves of guilt breaking down the walls of their containment, but there was nothing for it. The Doctor hurled the box into the pit and finished the incantation.

'_I cast you out. I reject you from my world. I deny your influence._'

The Doctor opened his eyes and relaxed into the all too familiar empty state that followed a rejection of feeling. The shaman who had taught him the technique had warned him from becoming too dependent on it, lest he become numb to everything. The Doctor highly doubted it; putting what he felt away was the only way he could function any more. Maybe it was age, maybe it was the weight of his years, but he seemed to grow less and less able to deal with what he felt as time went on. The flexibility of his youth seemed long ago and far away now: he couldn't get by with an old man's façade any more. The Doctor looked back from at his reflection. The body belonged to a thirty-something year old man, but the posture and expression belonged to a being far too old for sanity. He put the mirror away. The Doctor pulled on a set of old flannel pajamas and curled up in his bed.

His dreams were of the Master.


	8. The Warning

"Warning: this story was intended for people who shop in the grown-up section of the bookstore… if you have to ask whether you will be offended, you probably will." – Abbie Hilton

I would like to emphasize the rating of the story this time around. As most of you know, the Master can be a very not-nice person. There are things in this chapter I had trouble writing for various reasons.

This chapter was revised as of February 13, 2011.

Chapter Eight: The Warning

_The Valiant, Earth_

"Mrs. Saxon…" The voice was old and raspy. "Lucy, I need to talk to you." She looked around. It was dark on the Valiant and she had gone to the conference room to look for a lost earring. Harry had bought them for her, so she didn't want to ask the maids to look.

"Who's there?" She asked. The room seemed very big and cold. Lucy scanned the room, jumping at shadows and creaks.

"Me." She spun around to see a very old man crawl out of a tent. "Please, I need to speak with you. It's very important." Lucy wanted to turn away. Harry had told her that this man was his arch-enemy, a spinner of great lies and destroyer of worlds. This man, this "Doctor" was the same as Harry, but different. "Lucy..." He tried to pull himself up on a chair, but the wheels betrayed him. He pushed the chair too far and it spun out from under him. Without thinking, Lucy rushed forward to catch him.

"You'll kill yourself doing that." She admonished.

"No." The Doctor gave her a feeble smile. "Takes a lot more than that to kill me. Can you talk? I've got to speak with you." Lucy propped him up in one of the chairs.

"I should be getting back to Harry..." The Doctor grabbed onto her arm.

"You've got to listen to me." His old gnarled hands dug into her skin. He was stronger than he looked, just like Harry. "I have to warn you, you don't know want you've gotten into." Lucy studied his face. If you looked close, you could still see the younger person who had charged in a few days ago, especially the eyes. Just like with her husband, emotions showed clearly within them.

"Alright." She said, pulling up another chair. The Doctor relaxed a bit and released her arm.

"I know you think you know him."

"If you're going to tell me that he's a Time Lord, I already know." Lucy said.

The Doctor looked at her sadly. "Is that all he told you?"

"He told me about you," she said. "And about the end of the universe."

"About me?" The Doctor seemed surprised. "What did he say?"

"That you're enemies."

"Is that all?"

Now it was Lucy's turned to be surprised. "What do you mean?"

The Doctor sighed. "Lucy, the Master and I have known each other since before your sun started to burn. We have a history. All this," he glanced around the room. "It's just to get back at me." He turned back to Lucy. "But I'm going to deal with that on my own."

"So why are you talking to me?"

"Because you're in more danger than you realize. The Master is going to hurt you." Lucy gave him an offended huff.

"Are you trying to drive us apart or something?"

"No." The Doctor looked desperate. "I'm trying to help you. I've been with the Master. Yes, what you're thinking." He said in response to her astonished expression. "It's the twenty-first century, don't look surprised. I know how he is. He'll use you up then turn on you."

"I don't believe you." She started to get up but he grabbed her hand.

"Please, just listen to me. Right now you're the center of his world, right? He'll do anything to keep you around. He'll all over you all the time, always ready but never willing to talk."

"I'm not falling for it."

"He's hard on you, isn't he? You always feel like you're never good enough for him, so you do more. You let him go farther and farther, and give just a little more and hope that it'll be enough. But it will never be enough." Lucy turned on him angrily.

"How do you know that? Maybe it didn't work with you but things are fine with us."

"I know because you're not a Time Lord. You're not me, Lucy."

"Oh! I see now." Lucy jerked her hand away. "You're just jealous."

"That's not it. I…" Even now the words failed him. "I care about him. The Master's my friend, the only one left. Don't you think I want him to be happy?"

"Then leave us alone." Lucy spat.

"He's done this before. I've seen it happen. He'll turn on you." The Doctor looked as if he was going to cry. "I know what he's trying to do: he's using you to drown out the drums. When he figures out that you can't, he'll get frustrated and turn on you. You're a distraction to him, nothing more."

"Shut up."

"It's true." The Doctor insisted. "And you believe it, I can see it on your face. Lucy, if you care about yourself at all…"

"I made my choice." Lucy got up and walked towards the door.

* * *

_MAXA Offices, Crisvel, Aldebaran 6 (Eye-of-the-Bull)_

Trixam paced down the hall. It had taken a long time to get the emotions of the family through her mind, but she was finally at a point were she could function. Some of the feelings were stirring up again, especially the fury of the Master and the anger of her daughter. She would have to be careful to keep them down in order to not kill Enzo.

The decision had been difficult to come to. It would certainly be the easier option – Trixam had learned how to kill without suffering, so she wouldn't have to take on any additional emotions. The trouble was, she wanted justice more than revenge. The Hunter wanted Enzo to feel all the fear and anger and despair she was now carrying, but the sane part of her insisted that the true victims in this were more important. If she killed Tapori now (or made him irrevocably insane, the other option she'd been considering), there was no help for the family. Trixam approached the office door, threw it open and walked in without breaking stride.

"What?" Enzo looked up at the interruption. "Look, I'm very busy so…" Then his face went pale as he realized who had walked in. He shifted to the intermediary language used between auditory speakers and Trixam's class of species. "Hunter Trixam. I wasn't expecting to see you so soon. Did the mission go well?" Enzo stood up behind the desk but did not move forward to meet her.

"No." Trixam replied in the same tongue. "It was the worst contract I ever took. You deceived me, Enzo Tapori." The fury of the Master was screaming for blood.

"What do you mean?" Enzo gave a nervous laugh. "Why would I want to do that?"

"Do not toy with me." Trixam hissed. She shoved the desk aside with one hand and towered over him. The Hunter only had a few inches on Enzo, and was actually small for her species, but with her power leaking out in an aura of hate, she seemed ten feet tall. "You knew what they were when you sent me on that mission. They are more than thinking beings." Trixam picked Enzo up and shoved him against the wall. She was so angry that focusing enough to stay in the intermediate tongue was becoming difficult. "They feel, Enzo! Those beings had connection and you made me rip it apart." Trixam stared into his eyes. He was too scared to look away. The Master's emotions wanted to shred his mind right there, but the feelings of the Doctor tempered them.

"I…" Enzo choked out. "I didn't know…" The Hunter pressed him harder.

'_I am a senior adept of the House of Ashimei! Do not insult me by lying, mute!_' She threw the commoner's name for non-psychics at him, not caring how much offense the word carried. Someone of Trixam's age and station did not stoop to such language unless very, very angry. Fortunately for Enzo, he had worked with psy-ops long enough to know this.

"I apologize. Shouldn't have said that." He considered his words carefully. "I only said it because I wish it were true." Enzo continued. The Hunter let him slide down to the ground, but did not release him.

"You will explain." Trixam said. "You will explain why you have done this. And you will make the explanation quick and good. And when you have done that, you will then formulate a plan to fix this." Enzo started a protest that devolved into babbling when the Hunter leaned in. "The only reason I do not rend your mind right now is because I need you. I can still decide that insanity is a fitting punishment." She let her mental claws scrape across his defenses. Enzo shuddered. "Speak, Enzo Tapori."

* * *

"I didn't know it would be this bad." Enzo finished lamely. "I read about the Time Lords in the old records. You should see what the one has done!" He rummaged in his desk for some papers. "Could you imagine what a whole race of them could do? Even with just the two children, if they're anything like the male, we've saved hundreds of worlds!" Trixam stared at him coldly.

"You understand nothing." She said flatly. "There was connection of spirit. Now it has been severed. Can you even begin to comprehend…"

"I can." Enzo cut her off. "_You_ have to understand what the male is. He is a…" Enzo made a sound unpronounceable to most species in the Western Spiral Arm. "A caryatid. It is his fate to suffer so that the rest of us might live in goodness."

"I cannot accept that."

Enzo sighed. "We call the greatest good different things, but we have the same goal. Our beliefs aren't as different as you think, Trixam."

"The very fact that we are having this discussion proves that they are not in agreement. You still have not given me any reason not to destroy you."

"I thought your people viewed suffering as the greatest evil," Enzo countered.

"And great evil should be punished." Trixam reached out to him with her mind. She let the despair of the Doctor and the helpless fury of the Master enter his mind.

Enzo sank down and began to pine softly. "What… is this?" He asked between the high notes that were his people's response to sadness.

"This is what they felt. It is only a small part of the emotions of the parents. Shall I let it all in?"

"No…" Enzo begged, his voice unnaturally high with distress. "Please, make it stop." The Hunter withdrew the emotions.

"Now do you understand? I am bound to carry these with me forever. I am ruined as a Hunter; any more penance taken would surely end me. Now do you understand why justice for this pain must be found?" Enzo nodded.

"Even a caryatid doesn't deserve to feel such despair. And the other… she's just a bystander." He met her stare. "We'll find a way to solve this, I promise you that on the honor of my patron." Finally satisfied, Trixam reached out a hand to help Enzo up.

"We must move quickly. I fear that there will be more victims soon."

* * *

_The Valiant, Earth_

Lucy's whole body hurt, but it was nothing compared to what she felt. She was huddled in a corner of the bed she shared with the Master. Blood dripped from her nose, not quite broken, but it might as well have been. All across her body lay patches of pain that would become bruises in the morning. Her heart felt like a stone. Lucy hugged herself and sobbed quietly. The worst part wasn't that he had turned on her, not that he hit her, but that someone had warned her and she hadn't listened. She could have avoided this and didn't. It was her fault – she hadn't listened and hadn't been good enough. The sound outside the door grew louder. Lucy wondered numbly what he was doing out there; she couldn't have guessed it if she tried.

The Master was sitting in a chair with his head in his hands, guilt pressing down on him like a lead weight. It wasn't often that he felt this way, but the look on Lucy's face had brought it out of him. He had been fighting the memory for the last ten minutes, but it would not be denied. It came back like a wave upon his consciousness. In the conference room down the hall, the Doctor, whose sensitive hearing had not spared him from hearing the fight in the bedroom, was also remembering it.

* * *

Theta Sigma was sitting at his desk trying to finish class work. He wasn't making much progress, mostly because too much of his mind was filled with thoughts of his boyfriend. Something was very wrong with Koschei. He had been trying to ignore it, but there was no way to avoid it anymore. He had shown up in his room a few weeks ago, looking desperate and crazed. When Theta had asked him what was wrong, he had refused to say.

_"I don't want to talk." Koschei said. "I just want to be with you." Theta embraced him and kissed him, and took him into his room and held him for a long time._

_ "What's wrong, Koschei?" Theta asked later, stroking his friend's hair with a free hand. "I want to help. Won't you tell me?" He felt his friend tense against him._

_ "I hear…" Koschei tightened his grip on Theta's other hand. "I hear drumming."_

_ "Drumming?"_

_ "All the time. Four beats in my head. Always. I've heard them ever since I was initiated."_

_ "Koschei…"_

_He rolled over and faced Theta. "You're the only thing that helps. You make them fade. When we're together, my head's so full of you there's no room for them."_

_ "Koschei, you need help. Drowning out the drums isn't the way to deal with it…" Theta was interrupted when his friend suddenly kissed him. He pushed a hand through Theta's hair and let his plans seep into the other's awareness, something that never failed to arouse him._

_ "No more talking."_

Koschei's actions had a desperate quality to them that night. Usually he was slow and calculating; trying to make things last as long as possible, trying to drive Theta to be the aggressive one, making sure he didn't rush his friend or hurt him. This time, it was if he were a different person. He pushed too hard and too fast. Koschei never actually hurt him, but it wasn't the same. He didn't seem to be there – it was just a rush to the end. Theta let him do it, saying nothing because it was easier that way.

Instead of getting better, it had gotten worse. Koschei had become more distant and aggressive as the weeks passed. It was as if the childhood friend Theta had grown up with was snatched away somehow by the drums. '_But what do I do about it?_' Theta wondered. His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. Before he could say anything, it swung open. "Koschei…" Theta stood up and quickly crossed the room. He looked worse than ever – psychotic and afraid and distraught. "What's wrong?" In response, Koschei reached out and grabbed his friend, pushing hands and tongue possessively into the other. Theta got a wave of lust from Koschei's mind, but he was sensitive enough to feel its roots underneath. It was the only thing that let him avoid being sucked in. Theta blocked Koschei out, something he had never done before, and held his friend at arms length.

"Koschei, we're not doing anything until you talk to me."

"I don't want to talk." Koschei said. "I just want to…"

"No," said Theta firmly. "Something's wrong with you and I'm not letting it go on."

"Come on, you know you want to." Koschei began projecting the equivalent of mental seduction.

"Stop it." Theta broke away from his lover and took a step back. "You're sick and I'm not taking advantage of you."

"You think I don't know what I want?" Koschei closed the distance between them. "Theta, I need you." He reached out for his boyfriend. "Don't abandon me now." Theta took another step back to avoid the outstretched hand.

"I'm not abandoning you. You need help." He tried to keep his voice even, but he had a sickening feeling that his terror was seeping through to the surface. "I want to help you."

"Then help me." Koschei walked forward. Theta tried to avoid him but backed into the desk. The whole moment seemed unreal. This wasn't his friend, it couldn't be. Koschei grabbed his shoulders and pushed him down onto the desktop, his prey too shocked to fight him off.

"Koschei, please. Think about this. You don't want to do it." Theta had felt himself drowning in the emotions of the other. With the longer exposure, he could sense the purpose of it all. It had become an escape, sex. Just like he had said before, the two of them together filled up enough of Koschei's mind that the drums were almost silenced. "Please. I know you don't want to do this." Koschei began to peel off clothing. Pausing, he leaned down to whisper in Theta's ear.

"It's the way out. It's the escape. I need you." Koschei began to run his hands over familiar territory. Instead of feeling good, it was a violation. Theta wanted to cry. This couldn't be him. It had to be some sort of cruel trick. The sense of unreality peaked when Koschei began to push on him mentally.

"Don't do this, Koschei. I don't want to." Theta closed his eyes as hot tears forced their way down his face. "Please… you don't want to do it. I know you don't. I want to help, but you've got to stop. Don't do it." He choked back a sob. "I love you." Koschei froze. In all the years they had been together, Theta had never said those words to him. Never. He drew back from the other, astonished.

"What did you say?"

"That… that..." Theta struggled to put it into words again through the tears. "That I love you, Koschei. You know I do." Koschei's face turned dark.

"You fucking traitor. You never cared about me at all, did you?"

"What?"

"All those years you never said it. All those damned years we were together and you could never say it and now you spit it out to save yourself!"

"Koschei, that's not it."

"No!" Koschei threw an angry hand across the distance between them. "I came to you because I needed you and this is how you act after all the times I protected you. The one fucking time I need you for a change and you push me away!"

"That's not fair." Theta protested. "I want to help you but not like this. If you would just talk to me…"

"Too late for excuses. You're no better than anyone else, Theta. You're full of words, but when it comes down to it, you turn on me!" Koschei spun around and stalked to the door. Theta wanted to say something, but his brain refused to obey him.

Koschei wrenched the door open. "It's over." He went through and slammed the heavy frame so hard that the door bounced and fell open again. Theta watched his oldest friend storm away, then sank down in front of the desk and sobbed.

* * *

Lots of things had changed as the result of that day. Theta, now bereft of his only close friend, was forced to branch out. He had learned how to deal with people who weren't Koschei. He found that he liked meeting strangers, especially people who had never heard of him. He learned to function as a loner in a group – not without friends, but without connections that could one day come back to hurt him. Eventually, after many decades, he even learned how to trust a lover again.

But he never stopped watching Koschei. He saw his former boyfriend morph from the childhood friend he knew into the dark adult that would one day be the Master. Theta watched him chew up lovers and spit them out; moving on to the next without any concern for what happened to the last. This went on until he simply disappeared one day. In retrospect, the Doctor supposed this is when he ran into the woman who had taken him over. With Koschei out of sight, the wounds of childhood healed as much as they ever could.

There was only one injury of that day that never improved: the Doctor was never able to tell someone he loved them again.

* * *

The Master sat very still. He knew he should apologize to Lucy, but he couldn't find the words to do it with. There was no point in saying he was sorry when you really got down to it. It wouldn't undo what the pain he had inflicted on her, and honestly, did it matter? Lucy was just another distraction in a long line. What difference would it make what she thought of him? The Master got up, put on the face of the repentant abuser that always seems so thin, and walked into the bedroom.

Lucy didn't have long to wait under the heavy hand of her husband. Although it was less than a year, it seemed like a lifetime. There were times when she wondered how she had ever fallen in love with him, how anyone could. She noticed how the Doctor was very quiet under his own suffering, and she tried to imitate him. In the end, though, she could not bring herself to mimic his forgiveness.


	9. The Aftermath

"Warning: this story was intended for people who shop in the grown-up section of the bookstore… if you have to ask whether you will be offended, you probably will." – Abbie Hilton

Chapter Nine: The Aftermath

Martha ran down the hall of the TARDIS, pulling a robe hastily over her pajamas as she went. She had known something was wrong, but it wasn't until the Doctor's shouting echoed into her room that she realized just how bad things were. Without thinking, she tried to yank open the Doctor's door. It was locked. "When the hell did you start locking doors?" Martha asked between gulps of air. She pounded on the door.

"Doctor! Doctor, are you alright?" She heard shuffling on the other side, but no response. Martha threw her fist into the door again. "Doctor, answer me!"

"Give me a minute."

Martha stepped back and looked the hallway over. '_This must be at least 100 meters from my room._' She realized. '_How did I hear him?_' All thought of TARDIS acoustics vanished from her mind when she saw the Doctor. "What the hell happened to you?" She asked incredulously. He didn't appear to be harmed, but he looked as if he'd just walked in from a war zone.

"I had a bad dream." The Doctor said, his reply uncharacteristically short and without inflection.

"A bad dream?"

"Yes." He paused and seemed to regain some of his normal demeanor. "I have nightmares sometimes." The Doctor gave her a smile that was as fake as a three-dollar bill. "I was looking for something under the bed in and I thought it might be by the dresser so I turned around and…" Martha interrupted him.

"Doctor, are you alright?" She was in no mood for lies. '_If he doesn't want to tell me, fine. Who cares?_' She thought sarcastically. '_It's not like he really trusts me anyway. Not like I'm his precious Rose or anything. I only wandered the whole bloody planet for a year to save him, but never mind about that._'

"Of course." He said. "I'm always alright."

"You've been doing this ever since the Master died." She said, using all her restraint not to demand that he tell her what was wrong. The Doctor shrugged.

"This tends to happen about every year or so. Nothing serious. I'm sorry if I worried you." Martha struggled to process what he had just said. '_You've been fake for days, moping when you think I'm not looking, yelling for no reason and having horrible nightmares. You really think apologizing is going to make it okay?_'

"Do this so much I hardly notice." It was almost true. _"I've got to get off this ship. I'm getting as bad as Viki.'_

"Ye-ah…" He rubbed the back of his head. "I don't mean to… just a Time Lord thing."

"Must be hard." Martha said, giving him an opening.

The Doctor shrugged. "You get used to it. I'm alright, really. Go on back to bed. I'll wake you up went we get to Cardiff."

"Good night, Doctor." She turned and left the room. When she got back her own quarters, Martha pulled an innocent pillow off her bed and threw it across the room.

"Oblivious fucking bastard!"

* * *

The Doctor wandered into the control room. He idly flipped a few switches, more because he could than for any real purpose. He turned when he heard footsteps.

"Hello, Jack."

"Couldn't sleep?" The captain looked somehow less in his t-shirt and sweatpants. More human. The Doctor wondered what it was like to change clothes every day instead of every lifetime or so.

"Well, I don't actually sleep that much. And someone's got to keep this old girl on track." He patted the console absentmindedly.

"Doctor… did I ever tell you about the time I was married?"

The Doctor was surprised at Jack's openness, but didn't show it. "No, I don't think so."

"She was a beautiful woman: tall, intelligent, quite a temper that one. Threw a cup of tea my head once. Almost hit me too." Jack wandered around the console room until he was standing next to the Doctor. "When she died, I pretended like everything was fine. No one ever noticed the difference. All that time I was hoping someone would see past it and say something but they never did." The Doctor said nothing. He had become very interested in a nonexistent speck of dust stuck in between two keys. "That made it so much worse. I thought no one cared about me anymore. That's almost the way I wanted it. If no one noticed, I wouldn't have to loose anyone. I just kept on pretending like it didn't matter and everyone bought it. But you learn what that looks like once you've lived it. Doctor…" Jack leaned down to catch his eye. "You don't fool me." The Doctor looked up at him.

"He was just someone I knew from a long time ago. It doesn't matter now." He straightened and walked toward the exit.

"Stuff like that never stops mattering."

"Do you remember the first person you loved?"

"Of course I do."

"Imagine they went crazy, so crazy that they weren't even themselves anymore. Then suppose you were enemies for a while. That you fought with him across lifetimes, trying to save him, trying to stop him, just hoping that maybe you would turn around and he would be himself again. Then imagine that you thought he died, but then he came back just when you were starting to think you could finally move on and be done with it. And then, to top it all off, imagine that he tortured you, destroyed everything you cared about and then killed himself rather than stay with you." The Doctor took a breath. "How else would you deal with that?"

"I… I don't know." Jack shook his head. "I'm sorry."

"Jack, I'm over nine hundred years old. This is how I have to handle things. Let it go." The Doctor continued to walk to the exit. Jack knew what he was about to do was risky, but he did it anyway.

'_To hell with it._' He thought. '_You need this and I don't care what you think of me for it._'

As he passed, the captain stepped into his path and embraced the Time Lord before he could move out of the way. The Doctor was stiff in his arms at first, but Jack could felt him start to relax after a few seconds.

"Doctor," he said, very careful not to look him in the face, "I know that it hurts. I know you just want it to go away. But it doesn't work like that. You can't be the brave face all the time." The Doctor was silent – his only reaction was the shaking of his body. They stayed like that for a time, without words or judgment. Jack would not understand the complete truth of that day on the Valiant for thousands of years, but fifty-first century instincts hadn't let him down yet. In addition to heightened hormones, Jack's people were also more perceptive to smell. Over the years, he had trained himself on the precise use of his nose. The Doctor might say he was fine, but had he walked down the road in Jack's home village, he would he been swarmed by little kids, worried mothers, concerned men and other such do-gooders.

The Doctor took a deep breath and pulled away from the captain. Jack let him go slowly. He watched the Doctor's face, trying very hard not to notice how red his eyes were and how small he seemed despite being the taller man.

"Torchwood's been good for you, Jack. Taught you how to deal with people." The Doctor walked out of the console room, still radiating sadness, but without the bitter edge of before. Jack waited a few minutes, then left for his own room. A few steps down the corridor, he stopped and stripped his shirt off. '_He wouldn't want Martha to know,_' Jack thought as he tossed the wet cloth in the nearest bin.

* * *

_Plaza of the Patrons, Taurus Theta 4 (Halliya Non)_

"I am unsure concerning this course of action." Trixam said as they approached the temple. The godlings of Enzo's people always seemed too close to real deities for her comfort. She lived in a rational world, even if it was one of psychic power and emotions. Going this far into the realm of the mystical made her nervous.

"Don't worry," Enzo said. "My patron is kind." He led the way confidently into the building. A young member of Enzo's race approached them.

"Greetings," she said in the most common tongue of the area. "I welcome you to the temple of my patron, Tapori the Kind and Wise." She turned to Enzo. "I see that you are a member of my..." she used a word that could roughly be translated as "family" but carried much more meaning. Enzo bowed to her.

"I am, servant of our patron. I come to make a request of her if I'm able. It concerns a caryatid and is of immediate importance." The girl's face became slightly glazed.

"Yes, my older sisters tell me that you are expected." Trixam idly wondered if there was a psychic field running through the building. Her thoughts were interrupted when the attendant turned to her. "And you as well, respected outsider. If you would follow me please, our patron awaits us."

* * *

The inner sanctuary was full of light. A huge godling was sitting on the far end of the room, causally turning lead into gold. She turned around when Trixam and Enzo walked in. '_Greetings to you, my child and respected outsider_,' she projected, although it was unlike any communication Trixam had ever heard. Enzo bowed and Trixam gave the formal gesture for a high elder of a Hunter House. The godling nodded to them. '_Make yourselves comfortable._' They sat in a pile of cushions. '_My sight tells me that you have come concerning a great injustice and a caryatid._'

They told the story: Enzo's background and his decision to try the intervention, and Trixam's experience in the field. When she reached the part about releasing them, the godling crawled over to the Hunter and reached out with the fine hair-like tentacles that covered her body. '_Show me._' Trixam sent the emotions through and saw the follicles droop almost at once. '_Such pain. On any being, it is wrong._' The godling sat back. '_It is a terrible thing. This being is not a simple caryatid, but one of great significance._' She climbed back to her place in the front of the room. '_This will be difficult. There is much tied to him._' The tentacles folded in and the godling went silent for a time.

'_There is not much I can do._' She said finally. '_I can give this part of him… release. I have already spoken with him and arranged things, but it seems that he is destined to be one of the great absorbers of sorrow in this world._'

"Patron, you've helped him before?" Enzo asked.

'_Yes. Small things. In this case, nothing bigger than a storm and cracks in an already weakened structure._' She straightened. '_I have watched this one before, but what has been put upon him is not all my doing. There are many who interfere with this one. Child, you know my power in not unlimited, things must happen._'

"I know, Patron Tapori." Ezno said.

Trixam jumped in after him. "If there is anything you can do, for them, for the children…"

'_I can give a home for the children. There is one that now exists that can care for them. The parents…_' The hairs danced again. '_The best I can offer is a better death. The female has already died, but another aspect of her will be brought back. There is an opening to work through. I can alter events enough to bring them to ends that will offer… more closure. When they are beyond the world, I can bring them back together. It will shorten the male's life, however._'

"If it fixes this, he won't care." Trixam said quickly. "He loves her more than anything. If he saves the Master, and the children are safe, he'll be happy."

"I agree." Said Enzo. "He's died for others in the past."

'_Then it is decided._'

* * *

_London, England, Earth_

Alone.

He was alone again; it seemed that he was always meant to be alone. He always went back to this fundamental state to hide, alone and safe and away from anything that could hurt him. Safe, but cold.

And hungry. He was always hungry now. Hungry for food, hungry for energy, and sometimes, when the fractured lenses of his consciousness aligned in just the right way, hungry for people. Not to eat, but to have. He wanted the other. He wanted the other to find him and hold him and tell him everything was okay and put him back together again. But the other had betrayed him. He did not know when the great betrayal had happened, or what it had been. It was too terrible to remember.

The world shifted. Things were coming back into focus, slowly. A memory drifted past him like fish swimming by in a river. He reached for it.

_"What are you thinking about, Theta?"_

_ "You." The other's hands are wrapped protectively around his waist. The long red grass under them is soft and inviting. The other's lips touch his briefly. "I'm thinking about how you look and how much I like holding you. " He runs a hand down his side. "About how I want to stay like this for the rest of time." He's embarrassed, but he doesn't let it show. Theta is only honest in this way when they are far away from prying eyes. When there is no one to judge, Theta is open and trusting. The roles of silence and speaker are reversed: this is so rare that he does not risk interrupting. Instead of speaking, he puts his hands over Theta's and moves up closer against him. Theta holds him tighter. He lays his head against Theta's shoulder. For this quiet instant in time, he is not the one in control, not the protector, not the one who must be strong. It is sweet._

He lets the memory go. Its warmth would be good, but he feels so cold now that its heat burns him. He steps back from the waters of his mind and looks out at the world. It is so cold, so very, very cold and alone. He searches back into himself and takes up another burning memory.

_"Theta?"_

_ "Go away, Koschei. I don't want to talk." The other was curled up on his bed, trying to shield himself from the world._

_ "Theta…"_

_ "Just leave me alone." He sat down next to the other._

_ "I heard about what happened, about your family…"_

_ "I said I don't want to talk about it!" The other tried to get up, but Koschei grabbed his shoulders._

_ "Theta, forget about them. Family's stupid." The other just stared at the wall behind him. Koschei could feel anger, but it was thin. Below it was a feeling of betrayal the reached down deep to wound his soul. They sat together, then Theta finally spoke._

_ "I can't trust anyone." His body began to shake with the weight of the grief. "No one…" Koschei reached around him and pulled his friend in._

_ "You can trust me, Theta." The other buried his face in his friend's arms, shaking his head back and forth. Koschei extracted his friend's head and looked him in the eye. "Theta, no matter what happens, I won't abandon you."_

He releases the memory quickly, and sinks back into the cold and dark with only the drumbeat to lead him on. Sometimes, in the depths of his darkness, his own mind is so quiet that he thinks he can hear another. He thinks he hears another who is lonely and crying out. Sometimes, he wishes he could put that voice out forever. Other times, he wishes he could save it. He feels this way for a moment, but then remembers that he cannot remember what that voice did to him, and grows angry. He goes to find more flesh to eat. It will not fill the pit in his soul, but it will be a distraction.

As he wanders the outskirts of the city, he wishes idly that he could go back to the place of happiness. He wishes that he could piece his mind back together. He wishes that time could truly be undone. Then he remembers this is impossible. As he licks a bone clean, he thinks that maybe, if he lives long enough and he sees the other again, maybe, just maybe, he'll find what is calling him. He can be free then, he thinks. He can be free and fulfilled. Maybe he'll even find a patch for the hole in his soul. His thoughts drift apart. He is returning to the angry person…

The Master stood up and threw away the rib he was gnawing on. There were more important things to do. He had to find the Doctor. '_Soon…soon revenge will be mine and this will be over._' He dug in the junk for a pipe and struck out the signal for all to hear. '_Come and find me, Doctor. Come and end this._'

* * *

_MAXA Offices, Crisvel, Eye-of-the-Bull_

Enzo Tapori was having an out-of-body experience. He had read about things like this in human literature, but hadn't realized just what it would be like to throw his entire career away. He had started with MAXA when he was just grown, identified early for his skill with complex systems. His first intervention, a crafty piece of work with a race known as the Okapani, earned him a place as "one to watch". Now, as he raced through the corridors of the MAXA building, that all seemed very distant. Trixam still had physical custody of the children, so there was no need to do anything as dramatic as breaking them out of some dark basement holding cell. However, there were tons of files and references to obfuscate, edit, or out right destroy to keep any other curious agent from making Enzo's mistake. He clutched the memory stick in his hand. It was the last remnant of his failed second intervention. The hard copy hard been burned, the system database invaded by a virus he had bought from a back alley hacker, even his own notes and scribbles had been carefully excised. Now he just needed a microwave.

MAXA's permanent data files were stored on memory sticks specially designed against what Enzo was trying to do. They could be updated, but they could not be over written. Each one was tagged with a sensor that would activate if taken out of the building or subjected to water or extreme heat. Enzo had tried smashing it with a paperweight, but the glass had cracked instead of the metal casing. That's when he thought of the microwave. The local media library had had a problem with people frying tags in the break room and then walking out with stolen items. Enzo wasn't sure how this worked exactly, but he figured it was worth a shot.

He ducked into his own hall's break room. It was quiet – after lunchtime, but before the usual snack break a few hours later. He was about to put the stick into the oven when he heard someone mumbling from down the hall. Enzo yanked open the freezer and pulled out something at random. Not bothering to read the packaging, he ripped it open, shoved the memory card past the outer layer and jammed the whole thing into the microwave. He hit the buttons and started the device just as the other walked in.

"Oh, hello there, Nim." Enzo said, almost causally. The catling gave him a grunt in reply.

"Tapori."

"Having a good day?"

"What do you think?" Nim's tail lashed. "Damn Rathjen's got me on filing duty again. I'm a trained agent's apprentice! I didn't come here to do temp work." His eyes narrowed. "But we can't all be golden boys like you." Enzo didn't reply. His lucky break with the Okapani had earned him a full spot in the agency that took most entry-level beings years to achieve. The last thing he needed was a fight. "Damn teacher's pets." Nim went on. "I get into one little argument and I get kicked out the building for fighting and put on probation. No bloody justice." Then again…

"Hey, Nim." Enzo said. "When are they going to let you out of the basement? Wasting away down there I bet. Although, I hear they just keep the bad prospects down there until they quit, to save the trouble of firing them."

"Watch your mouth, golden boy." His tail lashed again angrily. "I got more mates around here than you."

"Oh, right. You and the other rejects." The catling rose, his eyes full of anger.

"You watch what you say to … hey, what's that smell?" Nim tasted the air. "That smells like my lunch." He tore past Enzo and ripped the microwave door open. "You little bastard! My job wasn't bad enough?" He grabbed the now ruined lunch and swung it about. "You've got to steal my gorram lunch too?" Enzo snatched the food out of the catling's hand.

"No," he said. "It's ruined now that you've had your hands on it." Enzo dropped the lunch in the trash. "Better go wash my hands." Nim launched himself on the other, attacking fiercely with teeth and claws. It wasn't long before building security came. They were both given a stern lecture about fighting and sentenced to a week suspension without pay. Enzo was almost singing as he left the building. He dialed Trixam on his communicator as he walked home.

"Yup," he said happily. "Couldn't have gone better – they won't even expect back for a week. I'll meet you at the _Bird_. Right, see you then."

* * *

"_The Hunting Bird"_

"That's Mummy?" Hazel asked. "What happened to her?"

'_She died,_' Trixam projected. She, the twins, and Enzo were clustered around a video screen. The surveillance camera Enzo had managed to lift from the MAXA office was trained to the Master. Trixam had done her best to explain the situation and regeneration, among other things.

"Why can't we go back?" Hazel asked. "Mummy's there and Daddy's there. Can't we just go to them and go home?"

"Your mummy's very sick." Enzo said.

"Does she have a cold or something?"

"No," Enzo said. "Her head's sick. She doesn't think right. Look." He pointed to the screen. It was showing the Master attacking the Doctor.

"Why would she do that?" Hazel demanded. "Mummy's not like that. Mummy loves Daddy. Why would she hurt him?"

'_Sometimes sick people don't think about things right. They can not always control what they do._' Trixam gestured towards the screen. '_He is better now. I do not think that he will do any lasting physical damage._' She drew the twins to her. '_Your father is going to try to save your mother, but it is unlikely to succeed. He has been sick for a very, very long time. Being with your father helped, but bad things have happened since._' Trixam fought down a wave of guilt. '_It is not safe for you to be there. He might not even recognize you._'

"Then what's gonna happen to us?"

"We've found a… relative of your dad's." Enzo said. "She's going to take care of you."

"We're not going to see Mummy or Daddy again, are we?" Hazel said very seriously.

"I don't think so." Enzo said.

'_It is quite unlikely that this form of your father will survive._'

"Daddy's gonna die?" Duncan asked.

"No," Hazel said grumpily. "He'll still be there. But it won't be him anymore, just like Mummy." She crossed her arms and glared at her brother. "Don't you ever listen?"

"I want to go home." Duncan said quietly.

"We can't!" Hazel shouted. "There is no more home, don't you get it? It's all gone! No more home or Mum or Dad ever again!"

"Stop yelling." Duncan said, covering his ears.

"Make me!" She shoved him into a chair.

Duncan threw up his hands to protect himself. "Quit it, Hazel!" he shouted, but she continued to hit him wherever she could. Enzo was about to separate them when Duncan surprised them all and punched his sister square in the face. "I SAID STOP!" He screamed at the top of his lungs. Everyone could see that he had tears running down his face now. He looked at them all, spinning in a circle. Hazel stared at him wide eyed from the floor.

"Duncan, I'm…"

"Just leave me alone!" He yelled and ran from the room.

'_Neither of us have offspring._' Trixam projected to Enzo privately. '_It shows._'

"Yeah…"

"I didn't mean to." Hazel pleaded with them. "I didn't mean to!"

'_Give him time,_' Trixam explained. '_Then go find him and apologize._' Hazel nodded and left the control room.

"What's the Earthling saying?" Enzo asked when she had gone. " 'Like daughter, like mother'?"

'_Close enough._'

* * *

The twins eventually became used to the idea of their "aunt" Jenny, especially after seeing that their parents were indeed gone. "It might be a bit rough," Jenny said, "but I'm sure things will work out. It's the least I can do. After all, it's what I wish he had been able to do for me."

'_If you are ever in need of assistance, I will be at the Blue Houses,_' Trixam projected.

"Or you can come to Halliya Non," Enzo said. "Just ask for the temple of Patron Tapori."

"I think we'll be alright." Jenny gave Hazel's shoulder a squeeze. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Where are we going?" Duncan asked.

Jenny smiled. "Well, that's the fun, isn't it? We've got all the universe to explore."

"Can we go look for the giant fat babies?" Hazel asked.

"I don't wanna go there." Duncan protested. "They eat people."

"Nuh uh. That was just _those_ Slitheen. I bet the others are nice." Jenny laughed.

"We'll figure it out on the ship. Come on, you two." She shepherded them onto the ship and closed the airlock behind her. The last of the Time Lords flew out across the night, bickering happily about where their first adventure should be.


	10. The Shores Beyond the World

A.N.: This is the final installment of "The Second Intervention of Enzo Tapori". Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed. I hope you enjoy the ending.

Epilogue: The Shores Beyond the World

He couldn't go now. There was still so much to do. Wrongs to right, people to help, planets to save. In the end, he had done as much as he could, but it still wasn't enough. And now he had to die a useless death. Why couldn't he go doing something good? Why couldn't he have died to save Rose again, or Donna, or River or any of the other thousands of people who fell in his path?

Why couldn't he have died to save the Master?

It was so unfair when you got down to it. He would have gladly died to save her, but here he was dying a slow, painful death for someone no more important than a grandfather.

"I don't wanna go." He said, as the energy overtook him. The Doctor felt himself ripped out of his body and thrown across uncountable distances. If he had been able to cry or scream, he would have.

The Tenth Doctor drifted in an endless night. There was nothing to look at, nothing to do, no direction or purpose. At first, he struggled against the darkness, but soon he let the silence envelope him. As much as he had fought against death, it was a relief to finally be free of the weight of everything. In this place, there were no people to save, no lovers to let down, no planets to save. He was finished with the world and there was nothing left. Although guilt still reigned in his heart, the realization that there was nothing more he could do granted him a strange sort of peace. He closed his eyes and slept.

After a time that might have been ten minutes or ten years, the Tenth Doctor woke and started to remember. Without truly considering it, his mind sought out the safest place he knew. It was full of deep red grass and lay under a burnt orange sky. Soon, he found himself lying in it. The sky above him was friendly, welcoming him home. He sat up. Unlike Gallifrey, this place had no horizon. It went on forever. The Doctor stood and turned around in a slow circle. In the direction of the minor sun, he spotted a woman.

He couldn't have said how he knew it was the Master, but even from that distance, he wouldn't have believed she was anyone else.

"Doctor," she said as she reached him. "I've been waiting for you."

"What…?"

The Master smiled kindly. "Still looks funny when you say that."

"Master, I…" The guilt welled up from the dark places of his mind as the peace of the silence shattered. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." He began to cry. "I couldn't save you. I tried but I couldn't. I'm sorry…" The Master gathered him up in her arms.

"Shhh…"

"I couldn't. There was nothing I could do you were so far away and when I found you again you were even worse and you didn't remember but you did and…"

"Hush now. It's all over."

"I'm sorry." He clung to her. "I couldn't save any of them. Not even you. I cared about you so much but I couldn't…"

"Doctor, it's okay. All that's over now. We're past it."

His voice strained past the lump in his throat. "But I didn't, I couldn't, all those things…"

"Doctor," the Master pulled him away from her to look him in the face. "I forgive you."

"You… do?"

"Yes," she held his face in both hands and projected the feelings to him. "I forgive you for everything you did wrong and anything you couldn't manage to do. I forgive you for the island and the academy and everything else. Let the guilt go, Doctor." His face slowly broke into a smile as the implications of the words worked their way into his mind. He was still crying, but now they were tears of happiness. In that moment, he was absolved. The guilt of his lives evaporated like water in a hot pan. After centuries of carrying around the terrible weight of ten lives, he was free. "You freed me," the Master continued. "Now we're even." The Doctor laughed and kissed her.

"I forgive you too. For everything." He paused to watch a similar change come over the Master. The Doctor leaned his forehead against hers and looked into her eyes. "And I love you." He said, the horrible association of those words gone. The Master hugged him so hard that they overbalanced and tumbled into the grass. They lay curled up together, watching the suns set and the stars rise.

"What should we do now?" The Doctor asked.

"I'm sure we can think of something." The Master said, maneuvering herself to a better position. "This is Heaven after all."

"You think so?" He asked, moving his hands to adjust to her new placement.

"We're together." She kissed him. "That's good enough for me."

And so it was.

The End

A.N.:

Inspirations for this story not belonging to me or the BBC include: _Meme_ by Rob Cummins; _Stranger in a Strange Land_, _Red Planet,_ and "By His Bootstraps" by Robert A. Heinlein; _Making the Cut_ by Chris Lester as published in the Metamor City Podcast; _Weather Child_ by Philippa Ballantine; _The Guild of the Cowry Catchers_ by Abigail Hilton, and many conversations with fellow Doctor Who fans.

Special thanks go to my beta reader A.J. and awesome editor Sara.

Enzo Tapori, Hunter Trixam and their associated backstories and races are my creations. Do not steal them.

As far as I am aware, everything in this story is _possible_ within current canon. I spent a large amount of time working out the details of this story and would love to hear feedback on my crazy theories.

The original (and very much sadder) ending to this story has been published as "Aftermath". AU versions of this story were the Master didn't die at the end of "Last of the Time Lords" have been/will be published as "Nightmares" and "The Waiting Game". If you enjoyed this story, try one of those. I also plan to write some Academy era stories based on what I've established here at some point.

Thank you for reading!


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